I 


--h 


The  Life  and  Works 

of 

Friedrich  Schiller 


The 
Life    and    Works 

of 

Friedrich   Schiller 


By 
Calvin    Thomas 

Professor  in  Columbia  University 


pi 
11^ 


New    York 

Henry    Holt    and    Companv 

1901 


The 
Life    and    Works 

of 

Friedrich  Schiller 


By 

Calvin    Thomas 

Professor  in  Columbia  University 


New    York 

Henry    Holt    and    Company 

1901 


^ 


Copyright,  1901, 

BV 

HENRY  HOLT  &  CO. 
Published  DecefnbeTy  igoi. 


ROBERT  DRUMMOND,    PRINTER,    NEW  YORK. 


TO 

Bleanor  Hllen  XTbomas 

H^n^tliehe  froutoe  min, 

^ot  Qtht  tk  f^iuu  unb  iemcr  0uotl 
liunbe  ich  ha^  ©etienfeen  bin, 

^t^  !)aete  icib  toineriictjen  muot. 


^63754 


PREFACE 

I  HAVE  Wished  to  give  a  trustworthy  account  of 
Schiller  and  his  works  on  a  scale  large  enough  to 
permit  the  doing  of  something  like  justice  to  his  great 
name,  but  not  so  large  as  in  itself  to  kill  all  hope  and 
chance  of  readableness.  By  a  trustworthy  account  I 
mean  one  that  is  accurate  in  the  matters  of  fact  and 
sane  in  the  matters  of  judgment.  That  there  is  room 
for  an  English  book  thus  conceived  will  be  readily 
granted,  I  imagine,  by  all  those  who  know.  At  any 
rate  Schiller  is  one  of  those  writers  of  whom  a  new 
appreciation,  from  time  to  time,  will  always  be  in  order. 

I  have  thought  it  important  that  my  work,  while 
taking  due  note  of  recent  German  scholarship,  should 
rest  throughout  on  fresh  and  independent  study. 
Accordingly,  among  all  the  many  books  that  have 
aided  me  more  or  less,  I  have  had  in  hand  most  often, 
next  to  the  works  of  Schiller,  the  collection  of  his 
letters,  as  admirably  edited  by  Jonas.  Among  the 
German  biographers  I  owe  the  most  to  Minor,  Weltrich 
and  Brahm,  for  the  period  covered  by  their  several 
works;  for  the  later  years,  to  Wychgram  and  Harnack. 
Earlier  biographers,  notably  Hoffmeister  and  Palleske, 
have  also  been  found  helpful  here  and  there. 


vi  Preface 

Of  course  I  have  not  flattered  myself,  in  writing  of 
a  man  whose  uneventful  career  has  repeatedly  been 
explored  in  every  nook  and  cranny,  with  any  hope  of 
adding  materially  to  the  tale  of  mere  fact.  One  who 
gleans  after  Minor  and  Weltrich  and  Wychgram  will 
find  little  but  chaff,  and  I  have  tried  to  avoid  the 
garnering  of  chaff.  One  of  my  chief  perplexities, 
accordingly,  has  been  to  decide  what  to  omit.  If  there 
shall  be  those  who  look  for  what  they  do  not  find,  or 
find  what  they  did  not  expect,  I  can  only  say  that  the 
question  of  perspective,  of  the  relative  importance  of 
things,  has  all  along  received  my  careful  attention. 
Thoroughness  is  very  alluring,  but  life  is  short  and 
some  things  must  be  taken  for  granted  or  treated  as 
negligible.  Otherwise  one  runs  a  risk,  as  German 
experience  proves,  of  beginning  and  never  finishing. 

My  great  concern  has  been  with  the  works  of  Schiller 
— to  interpret  them  as  the  expression  of  an  interesting 
individuality  and  an  interesting  epoch.  It  is  now  some 
twenty  years  since  I  first  came  under  the  Weimarian 
spell,  and  during  that  time  my  feeling  for  Schiller  has 
undergone  vicissitudes  not  unlike  those  described  by 
Brahm  in  a  passage  quoted  at  the  very  end  of  this 
volume.  At  no  time,  indeed,  could  I  truthfully  have 
called  myself  a  *  Schiller-hater  ',  but  there  was  a  time, 
certainly,  when  it  seemed  to  me  that  he  was  very 
much  overestimated  by  his  countrymen ;  when  my 
mind  was  very  hospitable  to  demonstrations  of  his 
artistic  shortcoming.  Time  has  brought  a  different 
temper,  and  this  book  is  the  child  of  what  I  deem  the 
wiser  disposition. 

For  the  poet  who  wins  the  heart  of  a  great  people 


Preface 


vn 


and  holds  it  for  a  century  is  right;  there  is  nothing 
more  to  be  said,  so  far  as  concerns  his  title  to  renown. 
The  creative  achievement  is  far  more  precious  and  im- 
portant than  any  possible  criticism  of  it.  This  does 
not  mean  that  in  dealing  with  such  a  poet  the  critic  is 
in  duty  bound  to  abdicate  his  lower  function  and  to  let 
his  scruples  melt  away  in  the  warm  water  of  a  friendly 
partisanship;  it  means  only  that  he  will  be  best  occu- 
pied, speaking  generally,  in  a  conscientious  attempt  to 
see  the  man  as  he  was,  to  **  experience  the  savor  of 
him  ' ' ,  and  to  understand  the  national  temperament  to 
which  he  has  endeared  himself. 

This,  I  hope,  defines  sufficiently  the  spirit  in  which 
I  have  written.  In  discussing  the  plays  I  have  en- 
deavored to  deal  with  them  in  a  large  way,  laying  hold 
of  each  where  it  is  most  interesting,  and  not  caring  to 
be  either  systematic  or  exhaustive.  Questions  of 
minute  and  technical  scholarship,  such  as  have  their 
proper  place  in  a  learned  monograph,  or  in  the  intro- 
duction and  notes  to  an  edition  of  the  text,  have  been 
avoided  on  principle.  Everywhere — even  in  the  diffi- 
cult thirteenth  chapter — my  aim  has  been  to  disengage 
and  bring  clearly  into  view  the  essential,  distinctive 
character  of  Schiller's  work;  and  where  I  have  had  to 
fear  either  that  the  professional  scholar  would  frown  at 
my  sins  of  omission,  or  that  the  mere  lover  of  literature 
would  yawn  at  my  sins  of  commission,  I  have  boldly 
accepted  the  first-named  horn  of  the  dilemma. 

New  York,  Nov.  6,  1901. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

parentage  an&  Scbooling 


PAGE 


Captain  Schiller  and  his  wife — Sojourn  at  Lorch — Traits  of 
Friedrich's  childhood — Removal  to  Ludwigsburg — 
Karl  Eugen,  Duke  of  Wiirttemberg — Impressions  from 
court,  theater  and  school — Poetic  beginnings — Duke 
Karl's  change  of  heart — Franziska  von  Hohenheim — 
The  Academy  at  Solitude — Schiller  at  the  Academy — 
School  exercises — From  law  to  medicine — Early  poems 
and  orations — An  ardent  friend — Books  read  and  their 
effect — Dramatic  plans — Dissertation  rejected — Gene- 
sis of  'The  Robbers' — Morbid  melancholy — Release 
from  the  Academy — Value  of  the  education  received . .       i 

CHAPTER  II 

tlbc  1Robber5 

General  characterization — The  Schubart  story — Schiller 
and  Schubart — The  contrasted  brothers — Comparison 
with  Klinger  and  Leisewitz — Influence  of  Rousseau 
and  Goethe — Unlike  earlier  attacks  on  the  social  order 
— Outlawry  in  the  eighteenth  century — The  noble  ban- 
dit in  literature — Karl  Moor's  crazy  ambition — His 
sentimentalism — Schiller's  sympathy  with  his  hero- 
Character  of  Franz — Influence  of  Shakspere — Ethical 
attitude  of  Franz — A  dull  villain — Character  of  Amalia 
— The  subordinate  outlaws — A  powerful  stage-play — 

Defects  and  merits . . , , 31 

ix 


X  Contents 

CHAPTER  in 

Zhc  Stuttgart  /fteDicua 

PAGB 

Schiller's  position  at  Stuttgart— Personal  appearance- 
Convivial  pleasures — Visits  at  Solitude — Revision  of 
'  The  Robbers  '  for  publication — The  two  prefaces — Re- 
ception of  '  The  Robbers  ' — A  stage-version  prepared 
for  Dalberg — Changes  in  the  stage-version — Popularity 
of  the  play — Medicus  and  poet — The  '  Anthology  '  of 
1782 — Character  of  Schiller's  youthful  verse — Various 
poems  considered — The  songs  to  Laura — Poetic 
promise  of  the  '  Anthology ' — Journalistic  enterprises 
— Schiller  as  a  critic  of  himself — Quarrel  with  Duke 
Karl — The  Swiss  imbroglio — The  duke  implacable — 
Flight  from  Stuttgart 55 

CHAPTER   IV 

XTbe  Conspiracig  ot  jfiesco  at  <5enoa 

General  characterization — The  historical  Fiesco — Influence 
of  Rousseau — The  conflicting  authorities — Fact  and 
fiction  in  the  play — Not  really  a  republican  tragedy — 
Character  of  Fiesco — Of  Verrina — Schiller's  vacillation 
— Fiesco's  inconsistency — Lack  of  historical  lucidity — 
The  changed  conclusion — Weak  and  strong  points — 
Fiesco  and  the  Moor — The  female  characters — Ex- 
travagant diction 80 

CHAPTER  V 

^be  jfuQltiPC  in  fX&lng 

Reception  at  Mannheim — An  elocutionary  failure — '  Fiesco  ' 
rejected  by  Dalberg — Refuge  sought  in  Bauerbach — A 
new  friend — Relations  with  outside  world — Interest  in 
Lotte  von  Wolzogen — Literary  projects  and  employ- 
ments— Beginnings  of  '  Don  Carlos  ' — Friendly  over- 
tures from  Dalberg— Work  upon  'Louise  Miller' — 
Jealousy  and  resignation — Flutterings  of  the  heart — 
Departure  from  Bauerbach  with  new  play  completed. .     99 


Contents  xi 

CHAPTER  VI 

Cabal  auD  Xove 

PAGB 

General  characterization — English  Beginnings  of  bourgeois 
tragedy — •  Miss  Sara  Sampson  ' — Development  of  the 
tragedy  of  social  conflict — Love  in  the  age  of  senti- 
mentalism — Rousseau  and  the  social  conflict — Wagner 
and  Lenz — Diderot's  '  Father  of  the  Family ' — Gem- 
mingen's  '  Head  of  the  House ' — Evolution  of  Schil- 
ler's plan — Debt  to  predecessors — Hints  from  Wagner 
and  Lessing  and  '  Siegwart ' — Weakness  of  the  tragic 
conclusion — Character  of  Louise — Her  religious  senti- 
mentalism — Fearsomeness — Lack  of  mother-wit — A 
cold  heroine — Character  of  Ferdinand — Sentimental 
extravagance — Father  and  son — Prototypes  of  Presi- 
dent von  Walter 112 


CHAPTER  VII 

Zbcatct  ipoet  in  ^annbeim 

Mannheim  in  1783 — Dalberg  and  his  theater — The  situa- 
tion on  Schiller's  arrival — Letter  to  Frau  von  Wolzo- 
gen — Contract  with  Dalberg — Illness  and  disappoint- 
ments— Pecuniary  troubles — *  Fiesco  '  on  the  stage — 
Triumph  of  '  Cabal  and  Love  ' — Critical  notices — Dis- 
course on  the  theater — Contract  with  Dalberg  not 
renewed  —  Disappointments  and  distractions  —  Rela- 
tions to  women — Charlotte  von  Kalb — The  poems 
'  Resignation  '  and  '  Radicalism  of  Passion  '—A  friendly 
message  from  Leipzig — Project  of  the  Rhenish  Thalia 
— Honored  by  the  Duke  of  Weimar — Unhappiness  and 
longing  for  friendship — Escape  from  Mannheim 137 

CHAPTER  VIII 

^be  a3oon  ot  jFrlcnDsbfp 

Gottfried  Kornerand  the  Stock  sisters— Huber— Schiller's 
arrival  in  Leipzig— A  proposal  of  marriage— Sojourn  at 


«ii  G^ntents 

PACK 

Gohlis — Schiller  and  K5rner — An  enthusiastic  letter — 
Korner's  helpfulness — With  the  new  friends  in  Dresden 
— Influence  of  Korner  —  A  poetic  '  Petition  '  —  The 
'Song  to  Joy' — Contributions  to  the  TAaUa— Quick- 
ened interest  in  history — Letters  of  Julius  and  Raphael 
— '  The  Ghostseer '  begun — Unwillingness  to  leave 
Dresden — A  dramatic  skit — Affair  with  Henriette  von 
Arnim — From  Dresden  to  Weimar 156 


CHAPTER  IX 

Don  Carlos 

Poetic  merit  of  '  Don  Carlos ' — Its  slow  genesis — Schiller's 
explanation — St.  Real's  '  Dom  Carlos  ' — The  original 
plan — Ripening  influences — Decision  in  favor  of  verse 
— Change  of  attitude  toward  Carlos  and  Philip — Influ- 
ence of  Korner — Completion  of  the  play — Character  of 
Prince  Carlos — The  Marquis  of  Posa — Posa  and  the 
king — Posa's  heroics  in  the  last  two  acts — Character  of 
Philip — General  estimate 176 


CHAPTER  X 

BncboreD  in  tiburfnQfa 

Weimar  in  Schiller's  time — Renewal  of  relations  with  Char- 
lotte von  Kalb — First  meeting  with  Herder  and  Wie- 
land — Visit  to  Jena — Pleased  with  Weimar — New  liter- 
ary pursuits — Visit  to  Meiningen  and  introduction  to 
the  Lengefeld  family — Charlotte  von  Lengefeld — A 
summer  idyl — Awakening  interest  in  the  Greeks— First 
meeting  with  Goethe — Appointed  professor  at  Jena — 
Bitterness  toward  Goethe — Love,  betrothal  and  mar- 
riage— 'The  Gods  of  Greece'— 'The  Artists' — 'The 
Ghostseer  ' — The  '  Letters  on  Don  Carlos  ' — Review  of 
•  Egmont '— '  The  Misanthrope '—Translations  from 
Euripides  and  other  minor  writings 201 


Contents  xiii 

CHAPTER  XI 

Ibfstorical  mritings 

FAGS 

Schiller's  merit  as  a  historian — Genesis  of '  The  Defection 
of  the  Netherlands'  —  The  author's  self-confidence 
— His  readableness — Freedom  the  animating  idea — At- 
titude toward  past  and  present — Position  as  a  historian 
— Too  little  regard  for  the  fact — First  lecture  at  Jena 
—Influence  of  Kant— Theory  of  the  Fall— The  *  His- 
torical Memoirs  ' — Inchoate  Romanticism — *  History  of 
the  Thirty  Years'  War' — Skill  in  narrating — Concep- 
tion of  the  war  as  a  struggle  for  freedom — View  of  Gus- 
tav  Adolf 228 

CHAPTER   XII 

Dark  Dags  ;imitb(n  anD  mitbout 

A  happy  year — Disastrous  illness  in  January,  1791 — Feud 
with  Burger — Interest  in  epic  poetry — Second  illness 
and  desperate  plight — Help  from  Denmark — Resolution 
to  master  Kant's  philosophy — Visit  to  Suabia — Enter- 
prise of  the  Horen — Attitude  toward  the  Revolution — 
Sympathy  for  Louis  XVI. — Prediction  of  Napoleon — 
Made  a  citizen  of  the  French  Republic — Disgust  with 
politics — Program  of  the  Horen — Genius  and  vocation.  247 

CHAPTER  XIII 

Bestbetic  mrltinss 

Value  of  philosophy  to  a  poet — Goethe's  opinion — Schiller's 
early  philosophizing — The  essays  on  Tragedy — Plan  of 
*  Kallias' — Kant's  aesthetics — Schiller's  divergence  from 
Kant — Beauty  identified  with  freedom-in-the-appear- 
ance — Explication  of  the  theory — Essay  on  *  Winsome- 
ness  and  Dignity  ' — Essay  on  *  The  Sublime  ' — Remarks 
on  Schiller's  general  method — Letters  to  the  Duke  of 
Augustenburg — The  '  Letters  on  Esthetic  Education  ' 
— Some  minor  papers — Essay  on  '  Naive  and  Senti- 
mental Poetry ' 263 


xiv  Contents 

CHAPTER  XIV 

Zbc  Great  Duumvtrate 

PACK 

Goethe  and  Schiller— Six  years  of  aloofness— Beginning  of 
intimacy — The  *  happy  event ' — Campaign  for  the  con- 
quest of  Goethe — Schiller  on  Goethe's  genius — A 
friendly  relation  established — Comparison  of  the  duum- 
virs— Fortunes  of  the  Horen — Return  to  poetry — Sig- 
nificance of  the  essay  on  '  Naive  and  Sentimental 
Poetry' — Goethe  on  Schiller's  theory — Enemies  assail 
the  Horen — The  Xenia  planned  in  retaliation — A  mil- 
itant league  formed — The  fusillade  of  the  Xenia — 
Effect  of  the  Xenia — Return  to  the  drama — Further 
relations  of  Goethe  and  Schiller 288 


CHAPTER  XV 

Xatcr  poems 

General  character  of  Schiller's  poetry — '  The  Veiled  Image 
at  Sais  ' — '  The  Ideal  and  Life  ' — Idealism  of  Goethe 
and  Schiller — 'The  Walk'— Poems  of  1796 — 'Dignity 
of  Women ' — *  The  Eleusinian  Festival ' — The  ballads — 
Attitude  toward  the  present — Lyrics  of  thought — '  The 
Maiden's  Lament  '—Popularity  of  Schiller's  cultural 
poems—'  The  Song  of  the  Bell ' — Latest  poems 308 

CHAPTER  XVI 

•©aaUenstetn 

General  characterization — Preparatory  studies — Difficulties 
of  the  subject— Study  of  Sophocles  and  Aristotle — 
Decision  in  favor  of  verse — Completion  of  the  play — 
'  Wallenstein's  Camp' — The  historical  Wallenstein — 
Schiller's  artistic  achievement — Character  of  the  hero 
— His  impressiveness — Effect  of  contrast  —  Octavio 
Piccolomini— Max  Piccolomini— Max  and  Thekla — 
Lyrical  passages — Absence  of  humor  and  irony 330 


G)ntcnts  xv 

CHAPTER  XVII 

^ari2  Stuart 

PAGE 

Genesis  of  the  play — Schiller's  removal  to  Weimar — *  Mary 
Stuart'  characterized — The  fundamental  difficulty — 
Unhistorical  inventions — Effect  of  these — The  meeting 
of  the  queens — Character  of  Elizabeth — Romantic  ten- 
dencies— Mary  conceived  as  a  purified  sufferer — Pathos 
of  the  conclusion — Ugly  portrait  of  Elizabeth  ac- 
counted for — The  historical  background — Dramatic 
qualities— Character  of  Mortimer 354 


CHAPTER   XVra 

^be  /IRaiD  of  ©cleans 

Variety  in  Schiller's  work — Genesis  of  'The  Maid  of  Or- 
leans ' — Schiller's  Johanna — Miraculous  elements — At- 
titude of  the  critics— Difficulty  of  the  subject— Jo- 
hanna's tragic  guilt — Her  supernatural  power — The 
scene  with  Lionel  —  Schiller's  poetic  intention — A 
drama  of  patriotism — The  subordinate  characters — 
Excellence  of  the  composition 371 


CHAPTER  XIX 

Zhc  3BrlDe  ot  flbceslna 

Genesis  of  the  play — General  characterization — Disagree- 
ment of  the  critics — Relation  to  Sophocles — Substance 
of  the  plot — Ancients  and  moderns — Fate  and  respon- 
sibility— Schiller's  invention — Unnaturalness  of  the 
action — Strange  conduct  of  Don  Manuel,  Beatrice  and 
the  mother — Lavish  use  of  silence — Schiller's  contempt 
of  realism — Don  Cesar's  expiatory  death  the  real 
tragedy — Use  of  the  fate-idea — Apologia  for  the  chorus 
— Poetic  splendor 387 


xvi  Contents 

CHAPTER  XX 

•QClUIlam  ^ell 

FAGS 

*  Tell '  and  '  The  Robbers ' — General  characterization — Gen- 
esis— Attention  to  local  color — An  interruption — Suc- 
cess on  the  stage — The  theme  of  *  Tell ' — A  drama  of 
freedom — The  play  intensely  human — Goodness  of  the 
exposition — Departures  from  usual  method — Character 
of  Tell — The  apple-shooting  scene — The  scene  in  the 
'  hollow  way  ' — Tell's  long  soliloquy — Introduction  of 
Parricida — Bertha  and  Rudenz , 405 

CHAPTER  XXI 

Zbc  BnD.— •dntlnfsbc^  plags  an&  B&aptattons 

A  Russian  theme  chosen — Berlin  negotiations — Work  on 
*  Demetrius  ' — '  The  Homage  of  the  Arts ' — Last  illness 
and  death — The  unfinished  *  Demetrius  ' — The  histori- 
cal Dmitri — The  original  plan  modified — Character  of 
the  hero — Poetic  promise  of  '  Demetrius  ' — '  Warbeck' 
— '  The  Princess  of  Celle  ' — '  The  Knights  of  Malta ' — 
Other  unfinished  plays — Adaptation  of  *  Egmont ' — Of 
'  Nathan  the  Wise  '—Of  *  Macbeth  '—Of  '  Turandot  * 
— Interest  in  the  French  drama — Adaptations  from  the 
French 423 

CHAPTER  XXII 

TOe  tDerDict  ot  poeterits 

Schiller  a  national  poet — His  idealized  personality — Esti- 
mate of  Dannecker — Of  Madame  de  Stael — Goethe's 
'  Epilogue  ' — Controversy  over  Goethe  and  Schiller — 
Attitude  of  Schlegel — Of  Menzel— Goethe's  loyalty  to 
his  friend — The  mid-century  epoch — Unreasonable 
criticism — Interesting  prophecy  of  Gervinus — Schiller's 
aesthetic  idealism  often  misunderstood — Schiller  as  a 
friend  of  the  people — Partisan  misconceptions — The 
enthusiasm  of  1859— Epoch  of  the  philologers — Pres- 
ent opinion  of  Schiller — Conclusion 445 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


Dannecker's  Bust  of  Schiller Frontispiece 

Christian  Gottfried  Korner 156 

Schiller  at  Twenty-eight 176 

Charlotte  Schiller 201 

Facsimile  of  a  Letter  from  Schiller  to  Korner  .  247 
Rietschel's   Goethe   and   Schiller   Monument  at 

Weimar 288 


LIFE    AND    WORKS    OF   SCHILLER 

CHAPTER   I  '. 

parentage  anD  Scboolin^     •'      : 

Nur,  Vater,  mir  Gesange. 

From  the  poem  *■  Evening  %  1776. 

When  the  Austrian  War  of  Succession  came  to  an 
end,  in  the  year  1748,  a  certain  young  Suabian  who 
had  been  campaigning  in  the  Lowlands  as  army 
doctor  was  left  temporarily  without  employment.  The 
man's  name  was  Johann  Kaspar  Schiller;  he  was  of 
good  plebeian  stock  and  had  lately  been  a  barber's 
apprentice,  —  a  lot  that  he  had  accepted  reluctantly 
when  the  poverty  of  a  widowed  mother  compelled  him 
to  shift  for  himself  at  an  early  age.  Having  served  his 
time  and  learned  the  trade  of  the  barber-surgeon,  he  had 
joined  a  Bavarian  regiment  of  hussars.  Finding  him- 
self now  suddenly  at  leisure,  after  the  Peace  of  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  he  mounted  his  horse  and  rode  away  to  the 
land  of  his  birth  to  visit  his  relations.  Reaching  Mar- 
bach — it  was  now  the  spring  of  1749 — he  put  up  at 
the  'Golden  Lion',  an  inn  kept  by  a  then  prosperous 
baker  named  Kodweis.  Here  he  fell  in  love  with  his 
landlord's  daughter  Dorothea,  a  girl  of  sixteen,  and 
in  the  course  of  the  summer  married  her.     He  was  at 


2  Parentage  and  Schcx>ling 

this  time  about  twenty-six  years  old.  He  now  settled 
down  in  Marbach  to  practice  his  crude  art,  but  the 
practice  came  to  little  and  Kodweis  soon  lost  his  prop- 
erty in  foolish  speculation.  So  the  quondam  soldier 
fell  out  of  humor  with  Marbach,  went  into  the  army 
again,  and  when  the  Seven  Years'  War  broke  out,  in 
1756,  he  took  the  field  with  a  Wiirttemberg  regiment 
to  fight  the  King  of  Prussia.  He  soon  reached  the 
grade  of  lieutenant,  in  time  that  of  captain ;  fought  and 
ran  with  his  countrymen  at  Leuthen,  floundered  at  peril 
of  life  in  the  swamps  of  Breslau  and  otherwise  got  his 
full  share  of  the  war's  rough-and-tumble.  From  time 
to  time,  as  the  chance  came  to  him,  he  visited  his 
young  wife  in  Marbach. 

These  were  the  parents  of  the  poet  Schiller,  who  was 
born  November  10,  1759, — ten  years  after  Goethe,  ten 
years  before  Napoleon.  It  is  worth  remembering  that 
he  who  was  to  be  in  his  way  another  great  protestant 
came  into  the  world  on  an  anniversary  of  the  birth 
of  Luther.  He  was  christened  Johann  Christoph 
Friedrich. 

The  childhood  of  little  Fritz  unfolded  amid  con- 
ditions that  must  have  given  to  life  a  rather  somber 
aspect.  After  the  close  of  the  war  Captain  Schiller 
moved  his  little  family  to  Lorch,  a  village  some 
thirty  miles  east  of  Stuttgart,  where  he  was  employed 
by  the  Duke  of  Wiirttemberg  in  recruiting  soldiers  for 
mercenary  service  abroad.  This  hateful  business, 
which  was  in  due  time  to  form  a  mark  for  one  of  the 
sharp  darts  of  '  Cabal  and  Love  ',  seems  to  have  been 
managed  by  him  with  a  degree  of  tact  and  humanity ; 
for  he  won  the  esteem  of  all  with  whom  he  had  to  do. 


Captain  Schiller  and  his  Wife  3 

At  home,  being  of  a  pious  turn  and  setting  great  store 
by  the  formal  exercises  of  religion,  he  presided  over 
his  household  in  the  manner  of  an  ancient  patriarch. 
Between  him  and  his  son  no  very  tender  relation  ever 
existed,  though  the  poet  of  later  years  always  revered 
his  father's  character.  The  child's  affections  clung 
rather  to  his  mother,  whom  he  grew  up  to  resemble  in 
form  and  feature  and  in  traits  of  character.  She  was 
a  woman  of  no  intellectual  pretensions,  but  worthy  of 
honor  for  her  qualities  of  heart.  ^  Of  education  in  the 
modern  sense  she  had  but  little.  Her  few  extant 
letters,  written  mostly  in  her  later  years,  tell  of  a 
simple  and  lovable  character,  tenderly  devoted  to 
husband  and  children.  Tradition  credits  her  with  a 
certain  liking  for  feeble  poets  of  the  Uz  and  Gellert 
strain,  but  this  probably  did  not  amount  to  much. 
Her  sphere  of  interest  was  the  little  world  of  family 
cares  and  affections.  Her  early  married  life  had  been 
darkened  by  manifold  sorrows  which  she  bore  at  first 
with  pious  resignation,  becoming  with  the  flight  of  time, 
however,  more  and  more  a  borrower  of  trouble.^  At 
Lorch  her  trials  were  great,  for  Captain  Schiller 
received  no  pay  and  the  family  felt  the  pinch  of  poverty. 
Here,  then,  was  little  room  for  that  merry  comradeship, 
with  its  Lust  ziim  FabuliereUy  which  existed  between 
the  boy  Goethe  and  his  playmate  mother  at  Frankfurt- 
on-the-Main. 

In  after-time,  nevertheless,  Schiller  was  wont  to  look 

'What  is  known  of  her  has  been  put  together  by  Ernst  Mailer,  in 
♦*  Schillcrs  Mutter,  ein  Lebensbild  ",  Leipzig,  1894. 

'  "Unsere  Mutter  nahrt  sich  gleichsam  von  bcstandiger  Sorgc",  wrote 
her  son  to  his  sister  in  1784. 


4  Parentage  and  Schooling 

back  upon  the  three  years  at  Lorch  as  the  happiest 
part  of  his  childhood.  The  village  is  charmingly 
situated  in  the  valley  of  the  Rems,  a  tributary  of  the 
Neckar,  and  the  region  round  about  is  historic  ground. 
A  short  walk  southward  brings  one  to  the  Hohen- 
staufen,  on  whose  summit  once  stood  the  ancestral  seat 
of  the  famous  Suabian  dynasty,  and  close  by  Lorch  is 
the  Benedictine  monastery  in  which  a  number  of  the 
Hohenstaufen  monarchs  are  buried.  Here  was  the 
romance  of  history  right  at  hand,  but  we  can  hardly 
suppose  that  it  meant  much  to  the  child.  The  Middle 
Ages  were  not  yet  in  fashion  even  for  adults,  and  little 
Fritz  had  other  things  to  think  of.  With  his  sister 
Christophine,  two  years  older  than  himself,  he  was  sent 
to  the  village  school,  where  he  proved  so  apt  a  pupil 
that  his  parents  became  ambitious  for  him  and  sent  him 
to  the  village  pastor,  a  man  named  Moser,  to  be  taught 
Latin.  The  child  looked  up  to  his  august  teacher  and 
resolved  to  become  himself  some  day  a  preacher  of  the 
word.  Not  much  is  known  of  Moser,  but  to  judge  from 
his  namesake  in  *  The  Robbers',  where  all  passions 
and  qualities  are  raised  to  the  nth.  power,  he  must  have 
been  a  man  for  whom  the  reproof  of  sinners  was  not 
only  a  professional  duty  but  a  personal  pleasure.  The 
plan  of  making  their  Fritz  a  man  of  God  was  eagerly 
embraced  by  the  pious  parents  and  became  a  settled 
family  aspiration. 

The  boy  himself  was  very  susceptible  at  this  time 
to  religious  impressions.  Sister  Christophine  carried 
with  her  through  life  a  vivid  memory  of  his  appearance 
at  family  worship,  when  the  captain  would  solemnly 
intone  the  rimed  prayers  that  he  himself  had  composed 


Traits  of  Friedrich's  Childhood  5 

for  a  private  ritual.  *  It  was  a  touching  sight',  she 
says  in  her  recollections  ^  of  this  period,  '  to  see  the 
reverent  expression  on  the  child's  winsome  face.  The 
pious  blue  eyes  lifted  to  heaven,  the  light  yellow  hair 
falling  about  his  forehead,  and  the  little  hands  folded 
in  worship,  suggested  an  angel's  head  in  a  picture.' 
From  the  same  source  we  learn  that  Fritz  was  very 
fond  of  playing  church,  with  himself  in  the  role  of 
preacher.  Another  reminiscence  tells  how  he  one  day 
ran  away  from  school  and,  having  unexpectedly  fallen 
under  the  paternal  eye  in  his  truancy,  rushed  home  to 
his  mother  in  tearful  excitement,  got  the  rod  of  correc- 
tion and  besought  her  to  give  him  his  punishment 
before  his  sterner  parent  should  arrive  on  the  scene. 
Still  another,  from  a  somewhat  later  period,  relates 
how  the  mother  was  once  walking  with  her  children 
and  told  them  a  Bible  story  so  touchingly  that  they  all 
knelt  down  and  prayed.  This  is  about  all  that  has 
come  down  concerning  Schiller's  early  childhood.  He 
may  have  seen  the  passion-play  at  Gmiind,  but  this  is 
uncertain.  In  any  case  it  only  added  one  more  to  the 
religious  impressions  that  already  dominated  his  life. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  year  1766,  having  exhausted 
his  private  resources  at  Lorch,  Captain  Schiller  applied 

*  As  quoted  by  Schiller's  sister-in-law,  Karoline  von  Wolzogen,  in  her 
^Life  of  Schiller',  first  published  in  1830.  The  Baroness  von  Wolzogen 
quoted  from  a  manuscript  by  Christophine,  which  was  at  that  time  in 
the  family  archives  and  has  since  been  published  in  the  Archiv  fur  LiU 
teraturgeschichte^  I,  452.  Christophine  wrote  down  her  recollections  in 
order  to  counteract  the  false  stories  of  Schiller's  childhood  which  began 
to  get  into  print  soon  after  his  death.  Of  this  character,  for  example,  is 
the  oft-repeated  tale  of  his  climbing  a  tree  during  a  thunder-storm  in 
order  to  see  where  the  lightning  came  from.  This  is  an  invention  of 
Oemler,  his  earliest  biographer,  who  invented  much  besides. 


6  Parentage  and  Schooling 

for  relief  and  was  transferred  to  duty  at  Ludwigsburg, 
where  the  family  remained  under  somewhat  more 
tolerable  conditions  for  about  nine  years.  At  Ludwigs- 
burg he  began  to  interest  himself  in  agriculture  and 
forestry.  In  1769  he  published  certain  *  Economic 
Contributions  ',  which  exhibit  him  as  a  sensible,  public- 
spirited  man,  eagerly  bent  upon  improving  the  condi- 
tion of  Suabian  husbandry.  In  1775,  having  become 
known  as  an  expert  in  arboriculture,  he  was  placed  in 
charge  of  the  ducal  forests  and  nurseries  at  Castle 
Solitude,  and  there  he  spent  the  remainder  of  his  days 
in  peaceful  and  congenial  activity.      He  died  in  1796. 

For  the  impressionable  Fritz  one  can  hardly  imagine 
a  more  momentous  change  of  environment  than  this 
which  took  him  from  a  quiet  rural  village  to  the  garish 
Residenz  of  a  licentious  and  extravagant  prince.  Karl 
Eugen,*  Duke  of  Wiirttemberg,  whom  men  have  often 
called  the  curse,  but  the  gods  haply  regard  as  the  good 
genius,  of  Schiller's  youth,  came  to  power  in  1744  at 
the  age  of  sixteen.  The  three  preceding  years  he  had 
spent  at  the  Prussian  court,  where  Frederick  the  Second 
(not  yet  the  Great)  had  taken  a  deep  interest  in  him 
and  tried  to  teach  him  serious  views  of  a  ruler's 
responsibility.  But  the  youth  had  no  stomach  for  the 
doctrine  that  he  was  in  the  world  for  the  sake  of 
Wiirttemberg.  Having  come  to  his  ducal  throne  pre- 
maturely, through  the  influence  of  the  King  of  Prussia, 
he  began  well,  but  after  a  few  years  shook  off  the 
restraints  of  good  advice  and  entered  upon  a  course  of 
autocratic  folly  that  made  Wiirttemberg  a  far-shining 

*  An  excellent  account  of  him  is  to  be  found  in  Vol.  15  of  '*  Allgemeine 
Deutsche  Biographie  ". 


Karl  Eugcn,  Duke  of  Wiirttemberg  7 

example  of  the  evils  of  absolutism  under  the  Old 
Regime.  Early  in  his  reign  he  married  a  beautiful 
and  high-minded  princess  of  Bayreuth,  but  his  prof- 
ligacy soon  drove  her  back  to  the  home  of  her  parents. 
Then  a  succession  of  mistresses  ruled  his  affections, 
while  reckless  adventurers  in  high  place  enjoyed  his 
confidence  and  fleeced  the  people  at  pleasure.  To 
gratify  his  passion  for  military  display  he  began  to  raise 
unnecessary  troops  and  to  hire  them  out  as  mercenaries. 
In  1752  he  agreed  with  the  King  of  France,  in  con- 
sideration of  a  fixed  annual  subsidy,  to  supply  six 
thousand  soldiers  on  demand.  The  money  thus 
obtained  was  mostly  squandered  upon  his  private  vices 
and  extravagances.  On  the  outbreak  of  the  Seven 
Years'  War  the  French  king  demanded  the  promised 
troops ;  and  so  it  came  about  that  the  Suabian  Protes- 
tants were  compelled,  in  defiance  of  pubHc  sentiment, 
to  make  war  against  their  co-religionists  of  Prussia. 
In  the  inglorious  campaigns  which  followed,  the  Duke 
of  Wiirttemberg  cut  a  rather  sorry  figure,  but  criticism 
only  exasperated  him.  He  promised  another  large 
body  of  troops  to  France,  and  the  men  were  raised  by 
harsh  measures  of  conscription.  The  Estates  of  the 
duchy  protested  against  this  autocratic  procedure,  and, 
as  Stuttgart  sided  with  the  opposition,  the  duke  deter- 
mined to  punish  his  unruly  capital  by  removing  his 
court  to  Ludwigsburg,  where  an  ancestor  of  his,  early 
in  the  century,  had  founded  a  city  to  match  Versailles 
and  serve  the  express  purpose  of  a  *  Trutz-Stuttgart '. 

The  removal  of  the  court  to  Ludwigsburg  took  place 
in  1764,  three  years  before  the  Schiller  family  found  a 
home  there.     From  the  first  a  purely  artificial  creation, 


8  Parentage  and  Schooling 

the  little  city  had  been  going  backwards,  but  it  now- 
leaped  into  short-lived  glory  as  the  residence  of  a 
prodigal  prince  who  was  bent  on  amusing  himself 
magnificently.  The  existing  ducal  palace  was  enlarged 
to  huge  dimensions  and  lavishly  decorated.  Great 
parks  and  gardens  were  laid  out,  the  market-place  was 
surrounded  with  arcades,  and  an  opera-house  was  built, 
with  a  stage  that  could  be  extended  into  the  open  air 
so  as  to  permit  the  spectacular  evolution  of  real  troops. 
Everything  about  the  place  was  new  and  pretentious. 
The  roomy  streets  and  the  would-be  gorgeous  palaces, 
flaunting  their  fresh  coats  of  yellow  and  white  stucco, 
teemed  with  officers  in  uniform,  with  blazing  little 
potentates  of  the  court  and  with  high-born  ladies  in  the 
puffs  and  frills  of  the  rococo  age.  Here  Karl  Eugen 
gave  himself  up  to  his  dream  of  glory,  which  was  to 
rival  the  splendors  of  Versailles.  He  maintained  a 
costly  opera,  procuring  for  it  the  most  famous  singers 
and  dancers  in  Europe,  and  squandered  immense  sums 
upon  *  Venetian  nights  '  and  other  gorgeous  spectacles. 
For  all  this  barbaric  ostentation  the  people  of  Wiirttem- 
berg  were  expected  to  foot  the  bills.  '  Fatherland !  * 
said  his  Highness,  when  a  protest  was  raised  on  behalf 
of  the  country,  *  Bah !  I  am  the  fatherland. ' 

Here  it  was,  then,  that  the  young  Friedrich  Schiller 
got  his  first  childish  impressions  of  the  great  world ;  of 
sovereignty  exercised  that  a  few  might  strut  in  gay 
plumage  while  the  many  toiled  to  keep  them  in  funds ; 
of  state  policies  determined  by  wretched  court  in- 
trigues ;  of  natural  rights  trampled  upon  at  the  caprice 
of  a  prince  or  a  prince's  favorite.  There  is  no  record 
that  the  boy  was  troubled  by  these  things  at  the  time, 


Ludwigsburg  Impressions  9 

or  looked  upon  them  as  anything  else  than  a  part  of 
the  world's  natural  order.  It  is  a  long  way  yet  to 
President  von  Walter. 

The  house  occupied  by  Captain  Schiller  at  Ludwigs- 
burg was  situated  close  by  the  theater,  to  which  the 
duke's  officers  had  free  admission.  As  a  reward  of 
industry  little  Fritz  was  allowed  an  occasional  evening 
in  front  of  the  *  boards  that  signify  the  world  ' .  The 
performances,  to  be  sure,  were  French  and  ItaHan 
operas,  wherein  the  ballet-master,  the  machinist  and 
the  decorator  vied  with  one  another  for  the  production 
of  amazing  spectacular  effects.  People  went  to  stare 
and  gasp — the  language  was  of  no  importance.  It  was 
not  exactly  dramatic  art,  but  from  the  boy's  point  of 
view  it  was  no  doubt  magnificent.  At  any  rate  it 
made  him  at  home  in  the  dream-world  of  the  imagina- 
tion, filled  his  mind  with  grandiose  pictures  and  gave 
him  his  first  rudimentary  notions  of  stage  effect.  We 
are  not  surprised  to  learn,  therefore,  that  in  his  home 
amusements  playing  theater  now  took  the  place  of 
playing  church.  Sister  Christophine  was  a  faithful 
helper.  A  stage  could  be  made  of  big  books,  and 
actors  out  of  paper.  When  the  puppet-show  was  out- 
grown, the  young  dramatist  took  to  framing  plays  for 
living  performers  of  his  own  age, — with  a  row  of  chairs 
for  an  audience,  and  himself  as  manager  and  pro- 
tagonist. 

Christophine  relates  that  her  brother's  fondness  for 
this  sort  of  diversion  lasted  until  he  was  thirteen  years 
old.  In  the  mean  time,  however,  his  chosen  career 
was  kept  steadily  in  view.  He  was  sent  to  the  Latin 
school,  from  which,  if  his  marks  should  be  good,  he 


lo  Parentage  and  Schooling 

might  hope  to  advance  in  about  five  years  to  one  of  the 
so-called  convent  schools  of  Wiirttemberg.  After  this 
his  theological  education  would  proceed  for  about  nine 
years  more  at  the  expense  of  the  state.  The  Ludwigs- 
burg  school  was  a  place  in  which  the  language  of 
Cicero  and  the  religion  of  Luther  were  thumped  into 
the  memory  of  boys  by  means  of  sticks  applied  to  the 
skin.  Fritz  Schiller  was  a  capable  scholar,  though 
none  of  his  teachers  ever  called  him,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  boy  Lessing  at  Meissen,  a  horse  that  needed 
double  fodder.  The  ordinary  ration  sufficed  him,  but 
he  memorized  his  catechism  and  his  hymns  diligently, 
fussed  faithfully  over  his  Latin  longs  and  shorts,  and 
took  his  occasional  thrashings  with  becoming  fortitude. 
On  one  occasion  we  hear  that  he  was  flogged  by  mis- 
take and  disdained  to  report  the  incident  at  home. 
Religious  instruction  consisted  of  mechanical  repetition 
insisted  on  with  brutal  severity, — a  mode  of  presenting 
divine  things  that  must  have  contrasted  painfully,  for 
the  sensitive  boy,  with  his  mother's  simple  religion  of 
the  heart.  When  it  is  added  that  he  was  often  nagged 
and  punished  by  a  too  exacting  father,  we  get  a  not 
very  sunny  picture  of  our  poet's  boyhood.  It  is  told,^ 
and  it  may  well  be  true,  that  he  was  subject  to  fits  of 
moodiness,  in  which  he  would  complain  of  his  lot  and 
brood  gloomily  over  his  prospects.  Nevertheless  a 
schoolmate  ^  has  left  it  on  record  that  Schiller  as  a  lad 
was  normally  high-spirited,  a  leader  in  sports  as  well 
as  in  study,  and  very  steadfast  in  his  friendships. 

^  By  Schiller's  youthful  friend  Petersen,  Morgenblatt,  1807;  quoted  by 
Weltrich,  **Friedrich  Schiller",  I,  77,  and  by  other  biographers. 
2  Wilhelm  von  Hoven,  quoted  by  Karoline  von  Wolzogen. 


Poetic  Beginnings  n 

While  at  Ludwigsburg  he  read  from  the  prescribed 
Latin  authors,  making  the  acquaintance  of  Ovid,  Vergil 
and  Horace,  and  in  time  won  praise  for  his  facility  in 
writing  Latin  verses.  Some  of  his  school  exercises 
have  chanced  to  be  preserved.  The  earliest,  dated 
Jan.  I,  1769,  is  a  Latin  translation  in  prose  of  some 
verses  which  seem  to  have  been  supplied  by  his  teacher 
for  the  purpose.  The  handwriting  and  the  Latin  tell 
of  faithful  juvenile  toil  and  moderate  success — nothing 
more.  Nor  can  we  extract  much  biographic  interest 
from  the  later  distichs  and  carmina  which  he  turned 
out  at  school  festivals.  Such  things  have  flowed  easily 
from  the  pen  of  many  a  bright  schoolboy  whom  the 
bees  of  Hymettus  failed  to  visit. 

According  to  Schiller's  own  testimony  ^  his  earliest 
attempt  at  German  verse  was  made  on  the  occasion  of 
his  confirmation,  in  April,  1772.  On  the  day  before 
the  solemn  ceremony  he  was  playing  about  with  his 
comrades  in  what  seemed  to  his  mother  an  all  too 
worldly  frame  of  mind.  She  rebuked  him  for  his  un- 
seasonable levity,  whereat  the  youngster  went  into 
himself,  as  the  Germans  say,  and  poured  out  his  sup- 
posed feelings  in  a  string  of  verses  so  tender  and  soulful 
as  to  draw  from  his  amazed  father  the  exclamation: 
*  Fritz,  are  you  going  crazy  }  ' 

After  such  a  beginning  we  are  not  surprised  to  learn 
that  German  poetry  made  its  first  strong  appeal  to  him 
through  the  pious  muse  of  Klopstock.  His  earliest 
more  ambitious  note  is  heard  in  a  *  Hymn  to  the  Sun  ', 
written   in   his    fourteenth    year.       It    is    the    note    of 

*  As  reported  by  his  friend  Conz,  Morgenblatt ^  1807.  Cf.  Weltrich, 
p.  80,  foot-note. 


12  Parentage  and  Schcx)Iing 

supernal  religious  pathos.  In  rimeless  lines  of  unequal 
length  he  celebrates  the  glory  of  God  in  the  firmament, 
soars  into  celestial  space  and  winds  up  with  a  vision  of 
the  last  great  cataclysm.  All  this  is  sufficiently 
Klopstockian,  as  is  also  the  boyish  dream  of  an  epic 
about  Moses,  and  of  a  tragedy  to  be  called  '  The 
Christians  '. 

But  the  time  came  when  our  young  psalmodist  of 
Zion  was  to  be  pulled  out  of  his  predetermined  course 
and  made  to  sing  another  song.  Were  the  overruling 
powers  malign  or  benevolent }  Who  shall  say,  re- 
membering the  Greek  proverb  that  a  man  is  not  edu- 
cated save  by  flaying  ?  Let  us  not  pause  to  speculate, 
but  proceed  as  quickly  as  may  be  across  the  interval 
that  separates  these  innocent  religious  effusions  from 
the  opening  of  a  great  literary  career  with  the  cannon- 
shot  of  '  The  Robbers '. 

About  the  year  1770  Duke  Karl  began  to  undergo- 
a  change  of  heart.  Wearying  at  last  of  life's  vanities 
and  frivolities,  the  middle-aged  sinner  took  up  virtue 
and  philanthropy,  as  if  to  show  mankind  that  he  too- 
could  be  a  benevolent  father  to  his  people.  The  new 
departure  was  due  in  part  to  the  political  success  of  the 
Estates  in  curbing  his  extravagance,  but  rather  more,. 
no  doubt,  to  the  personal  influence  of  his  mistress, 
Franziska  von  Hohenheim.  This  lady,  whose  maiden 
name  was  Bernerdin,  had  been  given  in  marriage  as  a 
girl  of  sixteen  to  a  worthless  Baron  von  Leutrum,  who 
misused  her.  Escaping  from  him  with  thoughts  of 
divorce  in  her  mind,  she  went  to  visit  friends  in  Lud- 
wigsburg.  Here  the  inflammable  duke  fell  in  love  with 
her,  and,  after  a  not  very  tedious  resistance,  carried  her 


Franziska  von  Hohcnheim  13 

away  to  his  castle.  This  was  in  1772.  Her  divorce 
followed  soon  after,  and  she  remained  at  court  as  the 
duke's  favorite  mistress.  He  presently  procured  for 
her  an  imperial  title,  that  of  Countess  Hohenheim,  and 
after  the  death  of  his  duchess,  in  1780,  he  married  her. 
She  was  not  beautiful  or  talented,  but  she  possessed 
amiable  qualities  that  made  and  kept  her  the  object  of 
Karl's  honest  affection.  She  knew  how  to  humor  his 
whims  without  crossing  his  stubborn  will,  and  she 
chose  to  exert  her  influence  in  promoting  humane  en- 
terprises and  leading  her  liege  lord  in  the  paths  of 
virtuous  frugality.  On  the  whole,  the  people  of  Wiirt- 
temberg,  who  had  suffered  much  from  mistresses  of  a 
different  ilk,  had  reason  to  bless  their  ruler's  fondness 
for  his  amiable  *  Franzele  '.  She  was  not  unworthy  to 
sit  for  the  portrait  of  Lady  Milford. 

An  educational  project,  the  founding  of  a  school 
which  later  came  to  be  known  as  the  Karlschule,  marks 
the  beginning  of  the  duke's  career  in  his  new  role.  He 
began  very  modestly  in  the  year  1770  by  gathering  a 
few  boys,  the  sons  of  officers,  at  his  castle  called  Soli- 
tude, and  undertaking  to  provide  for  their  instruction 
in  gardening  and  forestry.  This  Castle  Solitude  was 
itself  an  outcome  of  the  same  lordly  mood  that  had  led 
to  the  removal  of  the  court  to  Ludwigsburg.  It  was 
situated  on  a  wooded  height  some  six  miles  west  of 
Stuttgart.  Here,  by  means  of  forced  labor  and  at 
enormous  expense, — and  this  was  only  one  of  many 
similar  building  enterprises, — he  had  cleared  a  site  in 
the  forest  and  erected  a  huge  palace  which,  according 
to  the  inscription  over  the  door,  was  to  be  *  devoted  to 
tranquillity '.    But  how  was  a  prince  to  enjoy  tranquillity 


14  Parentage  and  Schooling 

without  the  necessaries  of  life  ?  In  a  short  time  a  score 
of  other  buildings,  including  an  opera-house  and  a 
barracks,  had  sprung  up  about  the  castle  in  the  woods, 
while  an  immense  outlying  tract  had  been  converted 
into  a  park  with  exotic  attractions  in  the  style  of  the 
time.  Here,  then,  was  need  of  expert  forestry — whence 
the  opening  of  the  school  as  aforesaid.  Once  started, 
it  became  the  duke's  special  pet  and  pride.  His  im- 
mense energy  had  found  a  new  fad — that  of  the  school- 
master. He  was  bent  on  having  a  model  training- 
school  for  the  public  service.  In  his  own  house,  under 
his  own  eye,  he  proposed  to  mould  the  future  servants 
of  the  state  like  potter's  clay.  In  this  way  he  would 
have  them  as  he  wanted  them.  To  provide  the  clay 
for  his  experiment  he  began  to  look  around  for  promis- 
ing boys,  and  thus  his  eye  fell  on  Friedrich  Schiller. 
Summoning  the  father  and  making  some  gracious  in- 
quiries, he  offered  to  provide  for  the  boy's  education  at 
the  new  school.  The  anxious  captain,  knowing  that 
divinity  was  not  to  be  on  the  program  at  Castle  Soli- 
tude, sought  to  evade  his  sovereign's  kindness  by 
pleading  that  Fritz  had  set  his  heart  upon  the  service 
of  the  church.  The  reply  was  that  something  else, 
law  for  example,  would  no  doubt  do  as  well.  Resist- 
ance to  the  earthly  Providence  was  not  to  be  thought 
of  by  a  man  in  Captain  Schiller's  position;  and  so  the 
step  was  taken  which  deprived  some  Suabian  flock  of 
a  shepherd  and  gave  the  world  instead  a  great  poet. 

It  was  on  the  17th  of  January,  1773,  that  schoolboy 
Schiller,  with  disappointment  in  his  heart,  said  farewell 
to  his  tearful  mother  and  took  his  cold  way  up  the  long 
avenue  which  led  from  Ludwigsburg  to  Castle  Soli- 


The  Academy  at  Solitude  15 

tude.  According  to  the  official  record  he  arrived  there 
with  a  chillblain,  an  eruption  of  the  scalp,  fourteen 
Latin  books,  and  forty-three  kreutzers  in  money.  Soon 
afterwards  his  father  signed  a  document  whereby  he 
renounced  all  control  of  the  boy  and  left  him  in  the 
hands  of  his  prince. 

The  school  at  Solitude  had  now  come  to  be  known 
as  the  Military  Academy,  and  well  it  deserved  its 
name.  The  duke  himself  was  the  supreme  authority 
in  large  matters  and  in  small.  The  nominal  head, 
called  the  intendant,  was  a  high  military  officer  who 
had  a  sufficient  detail  of  majors,  captains  and  lower 
officers  to  assist  him  in  maintaining  discipline.  Under 
the  eye  of  these  military  potentates  the  eleves^  as  they 
were  called, — for  the  official  language  of  the  school 
was  French, — lived  and  moved  in  accordance  with 
a  rigid  routine.  They  rose  at  six  and  marched  to 
the  breakfast-room,  where  an  overseer  gave  them  their 
orders  to  pray,  to  eat,  to  pray  again,  and  then  to 
march  back.  Then  there  were  lessons  until  one 
o'clock,  when  they  prepared  for  the  solemn  function  of 
dinner.  Dressed  in  the  prescribed  uniform, — a  blue 
coat  with  white  breeches  and  waistcoat,  a  leather  stock 
and  a  three-cornered  hat,  with  pendent  queue  and  at 
each  temple  four  little  puffs, — they  marched  to  the 
dining-room  and  countermarched  to  their  places. 
When  his  Highness  gave  the  command,  Dinez^  mes- 
sieurs,  they  fell  to  and  ate.  From  two  to  four  there 
were  lessons  again,  then  exercise  and  study  hours. 
At  nine  they  were  required  to  go  to  bed.  There  were 
no  vacations  and  few  holidays.  Visits  to  and  from 
parents  were  prohibited,  and  letters  sent  or  received 


1 6  Parentage  and  Schcx)Iing 

had  to  be  submitted  to  the  intendant.  Books  of  a 
stirring  character  were  proscribed,  along  with  tobacco 
and  toothsome  edibles,  and  quarters  were  often  seached 
for  contraband  articles.  Whoso  transgressed  received 
a  '  billet ',  which  he  took  to  headquarters.  Punish- 
ments were  numerous,  if  not  very  severe,  and  were 
sometimes  administered  by  his  Highness  in  person. 
The  duke  wished  his  proteges  to  regard  him  as  their 
father,  but  his  system  tended  to  the  encouragement  not 
so  much  of  honest  gratitude  as  of  rank  sycophancy. 
On  occasion  he  could  be  very  gracious  and  conde- 
scending,— would  take  the  youngsters  into  his  carriage, 
give  them  fatherly  counsel,  box  their  ears,  suggest 
subjects  for  essays,  offer  himself  as  opponent  at  their 
disputations,  and  so  forth.  He  was  very  proud  of 
showing  off  the  school  to  visitors.  His  birthday  and 
Franziska's  were  festal  occasions,  at  which  he  would 
distribute  the  prizes  in  person  and  allow  the  winners, 
if  of  gentle  birth,  to  kiss  his  hand  ;  if  commoners,  to 
kiss  the  hem  of  his  garment. 

A  modern  reader  will  be  very  ready  with  his  criti- 
cism of  these  educational  arrangements.  The  con- 
stant and  petty  surveillance,  the  deliberate  alienation 
of  boys  from  all  ties  of  home  and  kindred,  the  system- 
atic training  in  duplicity  and  adulation,  were  certainly 
not  well  calculated  for  a  school  of  manhood.  Schiller 
himself,  after  his  escape  from  the  academy,  was  wont 
to  speak  very  bitterly  of  the  education  that  he  had 
received  there.  Nevertheless  the  school  had  its  good 
points,  especially  after  the  removal  to  Stuttgart,  in  1775. 
Here  it  became  a  combination  of  university  (minus  the 
theological  faculty)  with  a  school  of  art,  a  school  of 


Schiller  at  the  Academy  17 

lechnology  and  a  military  academy  proper.  Several 
'Of  the  professors  were  inspiring  teachers  who  made 
friends  of  their  students.  The  fame  of  the  institution 
l)rought  together  promising  young  men  from  all  parts 
•of  Germany  and  from  foreign  parts  ;  and  several  of 
-them  besides  Schiller  attained  distinction  in  after-life.^ 
There  was  thus  intellectual  comradeship  of  the  very 
best  kind.  And  there  was  much  freedom  in  the  choice 
of  studies. 

But  the  solid  merits  of  the  academy  were  the  growth 
of  time  ;  in  the  beginning  it  was,  for  Schiller  at  least, 
mere  chaos  and  misery.  The  boy  grew  rapidly  into  a 
lank,  awkward  youngster  for  whom  the  military  disci- 
pline was  a  great  hardship;  he  never  got  entirely  rid 
of  the  stiff  gait  and  ungainly  bearing  which  resulted 
from  these  early  struggles  with  the  unattainable.  Fre- 
quent illness  led  to  a  bad  record  on  the  books  of 
the  faculty.  In  '  conduite '  he  made  but  a  poor  show- 
ing, and  he  was  several  times  billeted  for  untidiness. 
In  Latin  and  religion  he  got  along  fairly  well,  and  in 
•Greek  he  actually  took  a  prize  toward  the  end  of  the 
year  1773.  But  the  Greek  which  procured  him  this 
distinction  hardly  went  beyond  the  rudiments  and  was 
mostly  brought  with  him  from  Ludwigsburg.  For 
mathematics  he  had  but  little  talent.  His  bitterest 
trial,  however,  came  with  the  law  studies  which  he  was 
obliged  to  take  up  in  his  second  year.  A  dry  subject, 
a  dull  teacher  and  an  immature,  reluctant  pupil  made  a 
Jiopeless  combination.     And  so  he  got  the  name  of  a 

1  For  example  :  Cuvier,  Dannecker  and  the  musician  Zumsteeg.  The 
pros  and  cons  of  the  Karlschule  are  discussed  very  fully  by  Weltrich  and 
-also  by  Minor  in  their  biographies  of  Schiller. 


1 8  Parentage  and  Schooling 

dullard.  During  the  whole  of  the  year  1775  it  is 
recorded  that  he  was  at  the  foot  of  his  class. 

Two  bits  of  writing  have  come  down  to  give  us  a 
glimpse  of  the  boy's  mind  during  these  two  years  of 
helpless  floundering.  A  detestable  practice  of  the 
school  authorities  required  the  pupils  to  criticise  one 
another  in  moral  disquisitions.  On  one  occasion  the 
duke  gave  out  the  theme  :  '  Who  is  the  meanest  among 
you  ^ '  Schiller  did  his  task  in  Latin  distichs  which 
have  been  preserved.  They  show  a  healthy  feeling  for 
the  odiousness  of  the  business,  but  he  cleverly  shifts 
the  responsibility  to  Dux  serenissimus^  who  must  of 
course  know  what  is  good  for  him.  Then  he  proceeds 
to  depict  one  Karl  Kempff  as  the  worst  boy  in  school, 
— defraudans  socioSy  rudis  ignarusque^ — but  he  hopes 
that  the  wretched  sinner  will  yet  mend  his  ways  and 
become  worthy  of  his  gracious  prince's  favor. 

In  a  much  longer  prose  document  he  portrays  the 
characters  of  some  two  score  schoolmates  and  finally  his 
own.  He  begins  modestly  with  a  deprecatory  address 
to  his  most  gracious  sovereign,  without  whose  wise  order 
he  would  never  think  of  setting  himself  up  as  a  judge  of 
his  fellows.  The  portraits  are  amusingly  ponderous  in 
style,  but  their  substance  is  very  creditable  to  their 
author's  head  and  heart.  Toward  the  end  he  burns 
more  incense  to  the  duke :  *  This  prince  who  has 
enabled  my  parents  to  do  well  by  me  ;  this  prince 
through  whom  God  will  attain  his  ends  with  me  ;  this 
father  who  wishes  to  make  me  happy,  is  and  must  be 
much  more  estimable  to  me  than  parents  who  depend 
upon  his  favor.'  He  frankly  confesses  his  own  short- 
comings :     *  You  will  find  me  ',  he  writes,  *  often  over- 


Schiller's  Estimate  of  Himself  19 

hasty,  often  frivolous.  You  will  hear  that  I  am  ob- 
stinate, passionate  and  impatient ;  but  you  will  also 
hear  of  my  sincerity,  my  fidelity  and  my  good  heart.' 
He  owns  that  he  has  not  thus  far  made  the  best  use  of 
his  gifts,  but  he  pleads  illness  in  excuse.  His  gracious 
prince  knows  how  eagerly  he  has  taken  up  the  study 
of  the  law  and  how  happy  he  will  be  some  day  to  enter 
the  service  of  his  country.  But,  he  ventures  to  insinu- 
ate, he  would  be  very  much  happier  still  if  he  could 
serve  his  country  as  a  teacher  of  religion. 

The  divinity  was  out  of  the  question,  but  relief  was 
at  hand.  Toward  the  end  of  1775,  having  come  to 
terms  with  the  Stuttgart  people,  Duke  Karl  transferred 
his  academy  to  more  commodious  quarters  in  the  city. 
A  department  of  medicine  was  added  and  Schiller 
gladly  availed  himself  of  the  duke's  permission  to  enroll 
in  the  new  faculty.  His  professional  studies  were  now 
more  to  his  taste  and  he  applied  himself  to  them  with 
sufficient  zeal  to  make  henceforth  a  decent  though 
never  a  brilliant  record.  His  heart  was  already  else- 
where. For  some  time  past  he  had  been  nourishing 
his  soul  on  forbidden  fruit, — books  that  had  to  be 
smuggled  in  and  were  of  course  all  the  more  seductive 
for  that  very  reason.  With  a  few  intimates — Scharffen- 
stein,  the  Von  Hovens  and  Petersen — he  formed  a 
sort  of  literary  club  which  read  and  discussed  things. 
What  they  read  spurred  them  to  imitation  and  to 
mutual  criticism.  Presently  they  commenced  sending 
their  productions  to  the  magazines.  Schiller  began  to 
indulge  in  pleasing  dreams  of  literary  fame  ;  and  with 
this  new-born  confidence  in  himself  there  came,  as  his 
health  improved,  a  firmer  step,  a  more  erect  bearing 


20  Parentage  and  Schooling 

and  an  increased  energy  of  character.     To  be  a  poet 
by  grace  of  God  was  better  than  the  favor  of  princes. 

For  some  time,  however,  the  youth's  effusions  gave 
little  evidence  of  a  divine  call.  His  first  poem  to  get 
into  print  was  the  one  entitled  *  Evening ',  which  ap- 
peared in  Haug's  Suabian  Magazine  in  the  autumn  of 
1776.  In  irregular  rimed  verses — the  rimes  often  very 
Suabian — we  hear  of  sunset  glories  producing  in  the 
bard  a  divine  ecstasy  that  carries  him  away  through 
space.  Then  he  returns  to  earth  and  hears  in  the  voices 
of  evening  a  general  symphony  of  praise.  It  is  still  the 
Klopstockian  strain  of  magniloquent  religiosity,  tem- 
pered somewhat  by  the  influence  of  Haller.  In  *  The 
Conqueror ',  a  poem  published  in  1777,  the  Klopstock- 
ian note  is  still  more  audible.  The  form  is  a  pseudo- 
antique  strophe  such  as  Klopstock  often  used  ;  the 
substance  a  rhetorical  denunciation  of  military  ambition. 
The  most  awful  curses  are  imprecated  upon  the  head 
of  the  ruthless  *  conqueror ',  whose  badness  is  portrayed 
in  lurid  images  and  wild  syntax  that  fairly  rack  the 
German  language.^  No  wonder  that  editor  Haug  cau- 
tioned the  young  poet  against  nonsense,  obscurity  and 
exaggerated  metatheses. 

Nor  is  there  much  more  of  promise  in  the  few  occa- 
sional poems  that  have  come  down  from  Schiller's 
salad  days  in  the  academy.  One  of  them  was  inspired 
by  a  visit  of  the  emperor  Joseph,  whom  our  poet  glorifies 

*  For  example : 

Und  mit  offenem  Schlund,  welcher  Gebirge  schluckt, 
Ihn  das  Weltmeer  mir  nach, — ihn  mir  der  Orkus  nadi 
Durch  die  Hallen  des  Todes — 
,  Deinen  Namen,  Eroberer  1 


Early  Poems  and  Orations  21 

in  strains  almost  too  fervid  for  utterance.^  The  other 
two  are  birthday  greetings  to  Franziska  von  Hohen- 
heim — effusions  of  '  gratitude ',  as  it  is  called.  The 
gratitude  purports  to  come,  in  one  of  the  poems,  from 
the  ecole  des  demoiselles,  which  Franziska  had  founded 
as  a  feminine  pendant  to  the  academy.  Schiller's 
verses,  truth  to  tell,  sound  like  rank  fustian.  The 
duke's  mistress  is  glorified  as  a  paragon  of  virtue.  '  Her 
sweet  name  flies  high  on  the  wings  of  glory,  her  very 
glance  promises  immortality.  Her  life  is  the  loveliest 
harmony,  irradiated  by  a  thousand  virtuous  deeds.' 
And  so  on.  As  poetic  spokesman  of  the  girls  he 
pours  out  those  *  Elysian  feelings '  which  he  supposes 
them  to  cherish  toward  their  kind  and  virtuous 
*  mother  '. 

There  are  two  or  three  extant  school  orations  which 
likewise  exhibit  him  in  the  role  of  a  fervid  eulogist. 
The  rhetoric  of  them  is  very  highfalutin,  and  the  flattery 
would  be  nauseating  if  one  did  not  remember  that  it 
was  largely  a  matter  of  fashion.  Custom  required 
that  a  prince  be  addressed  in  the  language  of  adula- 
tion, and  nothing  in  that  line  was  too  extravagant  for 
the  taste  of  the  time.  As  for  Schiller,  he  had  got  the 
reputation  of  an  orator  and  he  only  did  what  was  ex- 
pected of  him  as  the  public  representative  of  the  school. 
Nor  should  we  think  too  harshly  of  the  duke  for  en- 
couraging the  foolishness,  since  he  too  only  conformed 
to  the  custom  of  the  Old  Regime.  At  the  same  time 
it  is  a  pleasure  to  learn  from  certain  well  authenticated 
anecdotes  that  he  and  his  eleves  did  not  always  live  in 

^  Weltrich,  p.  182,  argues  that  the  poem  is  spurious.     The  question  is 
hard  to  decide. 


2a  Parentage  and  Schooling 

a  fool's  paradise  of  sycophancy.  There  is  a  story, 
vouched  for  by  Weltrich,  to  the  effect  that  Schiller, 
who  had  acquired  fame  as  a  mimic,  was  one  day  asked 
by  the  duke,  with  Franziska  on  his  arm,  to  give  an 
impromptu  specimen  of  his  powers  by  imitating  his 
sovereign.  The  youth  hesitated,  but  after  some  urging 
borrowed  the  duke's  cane  and  proceeded  to  examine 
him.  As  his  Highness  did  not  answer  well,  Schiller  ex- 
claimed :  *  Oh,  you  are  an  ass  ! '  Then  he  took  Fran- 
ziska's  arm  and  began  to  walk  away  with  her.  Seren- 
issimus  looked  on  with  mixed  emotions,  but  only  said  : 
*  Come  now,  leave  Franzele  to  me  !  ' 

The  young  Schiller  was  nothing  if  not  intense. 
When  an  emotion  took  possession  of  him  it  set  him  on 
fire,  and  the  expression  of  it  was  like  the  eruption  of  a 
volcano.  Toward  the  end  of  his  course  at  the  acad- 
emy he  had  a  misunderstanding  with  his  dear  friend 
Scharffenstein,  with  whom  he  had  sworn  eternal  broth- 
erhood. The  result  was  a  long  letter  of  wild  expostu- 
lation in  this  vein  : 

What  was  the  bond  of  our  friendship  ?  Was  it  selfishness  ? 
Was  it  frivolity  ?  Was  it  folly  ?  Was  it  an  earthly,  vulgar,  or  a 
higher,  immortal,  celestial  bond  ?  Speak  !  Speak  !  Oh,  a 
friendship  erected  like  ours  might  have  endured  through  eter- 
nity, ...  If  you  or  I  had  died  ten  times,  death  should  not  have 
filched  from  us  a  single  hour  !  What  a  friendship  that  might 
have  been  !  And  now  !  Now  !  What  has  become  of  it  ?  .  .  . 
Hear,  Scharffenstein  !  God  is  there  !  God  hears  me  and  thee, 
and  may  God  judge  ! 

And  so  on  for  six  mortal  pages,  octavo  print.  The 
modern  cynic  will  smile  at  this  ecstatic  cultus  of  friend- 
ship, but  let  him  at  the  same  time  recall  the  saying  of 


Schiller's  Reading  at  the  Academy        23 

Goethe  that  what  makes  the  poet  is  a  heart  completely 
filled  with  one  emotion.^ 

It  is  now  time  to  glance  at  the  really  important 
phase  of  Schiller's  youthful  development — his  reading. 
While  his  native  Suabia,  just  then  rather  backward  in 
literary  matters,  was  still  chewing  the  cud  of  pious 
conventionality,  a  prodigious  ferment  had  begun  in  the 
outside  world.  What  is  called  the  *  Storm  and  Stress  ' 
was  under  way.  The  spirit  of  revolt,  which  in  France 
was  preparing  a  political  upheaval,  was  abroad  in  Ger- 
many, where  it  found  expression  in  stormy  or  senti- 
mental plays  and  novels, — works  composed  on  the 
principle  that  everything  is  permissible  except  the  tame 
and  the  conventional.  The  productions  of  these  young 
innovators  differed  widely  from  one  another,  but  they 
had  a  common  note  in  their  vehement  would-be  natu- 
ralism. There  were  over-wrought  pictures  of  daring 
sin  and  terrible  punishment;  novels  and  plays  laying 
bare  the  miser e  of  the  social  conflict;  tragedies  of  in- 
surgent passion  at  war  with  conventional  ideas;  of  true 
love  crossed  and  done  to  death  by  the  prejudice  of 
caste.     And  so  forth. 

How  much  of  this  literature  fell  into  the  hands  of 
Schiller  at  the  academy  can  not  be  told  with  perfect 
certainty,  but  it  would  seem  that  very  little  of  it  es- 
caped him.  He  read  and  was  deeply  touched  by  Ger- 
stenberg's  *  Ugolino ',  with  its  horrific  picture  of  the 
agonies  of  starvation.  He  read  the  early  writings  of 
Goethe,  of  Leisewitz  and  of  Klinger,  and  was  touched 
by  the  woes  of  Miller's  Siegwart.  In  *  Emilia  Galotti ', 
with  its  drastic  comment  upon  the  infamies  of  princely 

1  "Gotz  von  Berlichingen  ",  Act  I. 


24  Parentage  and  Schooling 

lust,  he  saw  the  subject  of  court  life  in  a  light  very 
different  from  that  in  which  it  habitually  appeared  to 
the  carefully  guarded  pupils  of  the  Stuttgart  academy. 
He  became  acquainted  with  Ossian,  and  the  shadowy 
forms  of  the  Celtic  bard,  big  with  their  indefinable  woe, 
increased  the  turmoil  of  his  soul.  Probably  he  read 
Rousseau  more  or  less,  though  direct  evidence  of  the 
fact  is  lacking.  At  any  rate  the  air  was  surcharged 
with  Rousseauite  feeling.  Certainly  he  read  Plutarch 
and  Cervantes,  and  along  with  all  these  came  Shak- 
spere,^  to  whom  he  was  introduced — in  the  Wieland 
translation — by  his  favorite  teacher,  Abel. 

The  effect  of  this  reading  upon  the  mind  of  Schiller 
was  prodigious.  It  changed  the  native  docility  of  his 
temper,  weaned  him  completely  from  his  seraphic  pro- 
clivities and  carried  him  with  a  rush  into  the  mid- 
current  of  the  literary  revolution.  There  came  a  time 
when  the  young  medical  student,  faithfully  pursuing 
his  routine  and  on  festal  occasions  spouting  fervid 
panegyrics  of  the  noble  Karl  and  the  divine  Franziska, 
was  not  altogether  what  he  seemed  to  be.  There  was 
another  Schiller,  burning  with  literary  ambition  and 
privately  engaged  in  forging  a  thunderbolt. 

1  The  acquaintance  began,  it  would  seem,  in  1775  or  1776.  At  first 
Schiller  was  repelled  by  Shakspere's  'coldness', — his  intermixture  of 
humor  and  buffoonery  with  pathos.  Of  this  first  impression  he  wrote 
many  years  later,  in  his  essay  on  *  Naive  and  Sentimental  Poetry ',  as 
follows  :  "  Durch  die  Bekanntschaft  mit  neueren  Poeten  verleitet,  in  den 
Werken  den  Dichter  zuerst  aufzusuchen,  seinem  Herzen  zu  begegnen 
.  .  .  war  es  mir  unertraglich,  dasz  der  Poet  sich  hier  gar  nirgends 
fassen  Hesz  und  mir  nirgends  Rede  stehen  wollte.  Mehrere  Jahre  hatte 
er  meine  ganze  Verehrung,  und  war  mein  Studium,  ehe  ich  sein  Indi 
viduum  lieb  gewinnen  konnte.  Ich  war  noch  nicht  fahig,  die  Natur  aus 
erster  Hand  zu  verstehen." 


Earliest  Dramatic  Attempts  25 

Two  dramatic  attempts  preceded  *  The  Robbers '. 
The  first  had  to  do  with  Cosmo  dei  Medici;  the  second, 
called  '  The  Student  of  Nassau ',  was  based  upon  a 
newspaper  story  of  suicide.  Both  were  destroyed  by 
their  disgusted  author,  in  what  stage  of  progress  we  do 
not  know.  Still  he  was  not  discouraged;  the  tragic 
drama  was  clearly  his  field  and  he  might  succeed  bet- 
ter the  next  time.  But  where  to  find  a  subject  ^  His 
perplexity  became  so  great  that,  as  he  said  later,  he 
would  have  given  his  last  shirt  for  a  good  theme. 
Finally,  in  the  year  1777,  his  friend  Hoven  drew  his 
attention  to  a  story  by  Schubart  that  had  lately  been 
published  in  the  Suabian  Magazine, — a  story  of  a 
father  and  his  two  dissimilar  sons,  one  of  them  frank 
and  noble-minded  but  wild,  the  other  a  plausible  mor- 
alist but  at  heart  a  scoundrel.  Schiller  took  the  hint 
and  began  to  write,  his  interest  being  no  doubt  in- 
creased by  the  miserable  fate  of  Schubart,  who  was 
then  languishing  in  the  Hohenasperg  as  the  helpless 
victim  of  Karl  Eugen's  pusillanimous  tyranny.^ 

Just  how  much  progress  was  made  with  *  The  Rob- 
bers '  in  the  year  1777  is  not  known;  probably  not 
much,  for  Schiller  soon  decided  to  drop  his  literary 
pursuits  for  the  present  and  devote  himself  closely  to 

^  Schubart's  crime  was  the  utterance  of  a  mild  poetic  lampoon  to  the 
effect  that  *  when  Dionysius  of  Syracuse  was  compelled  to  go  out  of  the 
tyranny  business  he  became  a  Schulmeisterlein. '  He  had  also  com- 
mented too  frankly  on  the  duke's  relation  to  Franziska.  Angered  by 
these  things  Karl  caused  him  to  be  tricked  over  the  borders  into  WUrt- 
temberg,  seized,  and  without  trial  shut  up  in  the  dungeon  of  Hohenas- 
perg, where  he  was  kept  for  ten  years  (177 7-1 787).  Schiller  visited 
him  in  November,  1781,  and  wa,s  received  with  tears  of  joy  as  the 
author  of  *  The  Robbers  '. 


26  Parentage  and  Schooling 

his  medical  studies.  Perhaps  he  may  have  hoped 
by  hard  work  to  finish  his  course  in  four  years  in- 
stead of  the  expected  five.  At  any  rate  he  now  bent 
to  his  toil  and  allowed  the  play  to  lie  dormant  in  his 
mind.  In  1779  he  submitted  a  thesis  on  'The  Philos- 
ophy of  Physiology ',  but  it  was  judged  unfit  for  print. 
The  professors  condemned  it  variously  as  tedious, 
florid,  obscure,  and,  worst  of  all,  disrespectful  toward 
recognized  authorities  such  as  Haller.  In  these  judg- 
ments the  duke  concurred.  He  found  that  Eleve 
Schiller  had  said  many  fine  things  and  in  particular 
had  shown  much  *  fire  '.  But  the  fire  was  too  strong; 
it  needed  to  be  *  subdued '  by  another  year  of  study. 

It  has  usually  been  assumed  by  Schiller's  biogra- 
phers that  in  his  intense  longing  for  liberty  he  was 
embittered  by  this  disappointment,  and  that  in  his 
mood  of  wrath  he  now  took  up  his  neglected  play  and 
poured  into  it,  hissing  hot,  the  whole  fury  of  his  quar- 
rel with  the  world.  There  is,  however,  no  evidence 
that  he  really  hoped  to  win  his  release  from  the  acad- 
emy in  the  year  1779,  or  that  the  thesis  just  spoken 
of  was  regarded  as  a  graduation  thesis.^  Neither  his 
own  letters  nor  those  of  his  friends  indicate  that  he 
was  angry  at  being  kept  in  school  another  year. 
Probably  the  critics  have  made  too  much  out  of  this 
factor  of  personal  disgruntlement.  Schiller  was  a 
poetic  artist,  and  his  first  play  is  much  more  than  the 
wild  expression  of  a  plucked  student's  resentment. 
Nevertheless  it  is  only  natural  to  suppose  that  his 
proud  and  ambitious  spirit  chafed  more  or  less  under 
the  requirements  of  an  academic  routine  that  his  man- 

1  Cf.  Weltrich,  I,  278. 


Genesis  of  The  Robbers  27 

hood  had  outgrown.  That  he  succeeded  after  all,  at 
the  end  of  the  year  1779,  in  capturing  a  number  of 
prizes  and  received  them  in  the  presence  of  Goethe  and 
the  Duke  of  Weimar,  who  happened  just  then  to  be 
visiting  Stuttgart,  could  do  but  little  to  sweeten  the 
bitter  dose  that  had  been  prescribed  for  him. 

He  now  set  about  the  preparation  of  a  new  thesis, 
and  in  the  intervals  of  his  professional  occupation  he 
worked  with  feverish  energy  upon  '  The  Robbers  '.  To 
gain  time  for  writing  he  would  often  feign  illness,  and 
when  the  duke  or  an  inspector  surprised  him  would  hide 
his  manuscript  in  a  big  medical  treatise  kept  at  hand  for 
the  purpose.  A  few  comrades  who  were  in  the  secret 
eagerly  watched  the  progress  of  his  work  and  vocifer- 
ously applauded  the  scenes  which  he  now  and  then 
read  to  them.  One  of  these  comrades  has  left  it  on 
record  that  in  the  excitement  of  composition  Schiller 
would  often  stamp  and  snort  and  roar. — And  thus  it 
was,  in  the  stolen  hours  of  the  night  and  driven  by  the 
demon  that  possessed  him,  that  he.  bodied  forth  his 
titanic  drama  of  revolt.  It  was  virtually  finished  during 
the  year  1780.  In  after-time  Schiller  reasoned  himself 
into  the  conviction  that  art  must  be  '  cheerful  ',^  but 
very  little  of  cheerfulness  went  to  the  composition  of 
*  The  Robbers  '.  It  was  the  disburthening  of  an  op- 
pressed soul  that  suffered  horribly  at  times  from  morbid 
melancholy — the  chicken-pox  of  youthful  genius.  A 
letter  of  June,  1780,  shows  how  he  had  battled  with 
the  specters  of  despair.  Writing  to  Captain  von 
Hoven,  whose  son  had  lately  died,  he  says  : 

1  "Ernst  ist  das  Lcben,  heiter  ist  die  Kunst." — Prologue  to  *  Walleti' 
stein\ 


28  Parentage  and  Schooling 

A  thousand  times  I  envied  your  son  as  he  was  wrestling  with 
death,  and  would  have  given  up  my  life  as  calmly  as  I  go  to  bed. 
I  am  not  yet  twenty-one  years  old,  but  I  can  tell  you  frankly 
that  the  world  has  no  further  charm  for  me.  I  have  no  delight 
in  thinking  of  the  world,  and  the  day  of  my  departure  from  the 
academy,  which  a  few  years  ago  would  have  been  a  day  of  festal 
joy,  will  not  be  able  to  force  one  happy  smile  from  me.  With 
each  step,  as  I  grow  older,  I  lose  more  and  more  of  my  content- 
edness;  and  the  nearer  I  come  to  the  age  of  maturity,  the  more 
I  could  wish  that  I  had  died  in  childhood. 

This  sounds  gloomy  enough,  but  the  desperate  mood 
did  not  last  long.  A  number  of  medical  reports  writ- 
ten in  the  summer  of  1780  indicate  that  Schiller  was 
able  to  take  the  calm  professional  view  of  a  case  very- 
similar  to  his  own.  A  fellow-student  named  Gram- 
mont  was  afflicted  with  hypochondria,  and  Schiller  was 
set  to  watch  him.  His  analysis  of  the  case  is  emi- 
nently sane.  He  finds  it  difficult  to  decide  whether 
the  young  man's  malady  has  its  seat  in  the  mind  or  in 
the  bowels;  whether  too  much  brooding  over  hard 
problems  has  ruined  his  digestion  and  given  him  a 
headache,  or  whether  a  physical  derangement  has  con- 
fused his  ideas  of  duty  and  religion.  He  thinks  there 
is  a  fair  chance  of  curing  the  patient  by  means  of  medi- 
cine and  good  advice. — A  youth  who  can  talk  thus  of 
another's  Weltschmerz  is  himself  in  no  great  danger 
from  the  malady. 

In  November,  1780,  he  submitted  a  new  thesis  upon 
*  The  Connection  between  Man's  Animal  and  Spiritual 
Nature'.  In  this  essay  he  considers  the  question 
whether,  for  the  purposes  of  moral  perfection,  the  body 
is  to  be  regarded  as  the  enemy  and  gaoler  of  the  soul, 
or  as  its  friend  and  coadjutor.     The  drift  of  his  argu- 


Last  Year  at  the  Academy  29 

ment  is  to  show  in  detail  the  dependence  of  the  spirit 
upon  the  flesh.  Finding  that  philosophers  have  been 
unjust  to  the  body,  he  comes  to  its  rescue, — expound- 
ing good  doctrine  in  an  interesting  though  rather 
florid  and  unprofessional  style.  In  the  course  of  his 
philosophizing  he  perpetrates  the  sly  joke  of  quoting 
from  his  own  manuscript  play  and  ascribing  the  words 
to  an  imaginary  '  Life  of  Moor ',  by  one  Krake. — Fur- 
ther comment  upon  the  essay  may  be  dispensed  with,^ 
seeing  that  Schiller  as  a  medical  man  does  not  greatly 
interest  us  at  the  present  time.  Enough  that  it  was 
accepted  and  procured  him  his  release  from  bondage 
toward  the  close  of  the  year. 

Afterwards,  in  the  bitterness  of  his  quarrel  with  the 
Duke  of  Wiirttemberg,  Schiller  took  an  altogether 
gloomy  view  of  the  training  he  had  received  at  the 
Military  Academy.  He  saw  only  the  forcing  process 
to  which  he  had  been  subjected,  the  narrow  life  that 
had  kept  him  from  a  knowledge  of  the  world,  and  the 
petty  restrictions  that  had  prevented  his  love  of  j5oetry 
from  developing  in  a  sane  and  natural  manner.  How- 
ever, it  is  always  the  poet's  fate  to  grow  strong  through 
his  own  gifts  and  his  own  trials;  what  schools  of  any 
kind  can  do  for  him  or  against  him  is  of  comparatively 
little  moment.  Had  Schiller  enjoyed  in  his  youth  the 
freedom  of  a  real  university,  his  literary  career  would 
no  doubt  have  opened  differently,  and  with  another  be- 
ginning the  whole  would  have  been  different;  but 
whether  it  would  then  have  interested  the  world  after 
a  hundred  years,  as  that  of  the  real  Schiller  does,  is  a 

1  Weltrich,  I,  298  ff.,  analyzes  it  and  discusses  its  scientific  value  at 
some  length. 


30  Parentage  and  Schooling 

question  for  omniscience.  Speaking  humanly  one  can 
only  say  that  the  misguided  paternalism  of  Karl  Eugen 
in  rousing  the  tiger  proved  a  blessing  in  disguise.  And 
the  schooling  itself  was  by  no  means  so  despicable. 
Schiller  left  the  academy  a  good  Latinist,  though  with 
but  little  Greek.  He  had  learned  to  read  French,  if 
not  English.  He  had  dabbled  in  such  philosophy  as 
there  was  going  and  acquired  an  interest  in  the  funda- 
mental problems.  He  had  read  not  widely  but  in- 
tensely— which  is  always  better.  He  had  made  a 
number  of  good  friends.  And  not  least  important  for 
his  future  career,  he  had  had  an  excellent  opportunity 
to  observe  the  forms  and  usages  of  high  life.^ 

1  Kuno  Fischer,  ' '  Schiller-Schriften  ",  I,  139,  has  some  very  interest- 
ing remarks  on  this  subject.  *'Woher  gewann  er  [says  Fischer],  der 
Sohn  eines  Dorfbarbiers,  .  .  .  eine  solche  sichere  und  eingelebte  An- 
schauung,  ich  mttchte  sagen,  Fuhlung  furstlichen  Wesens,  wenn  nicht 
Herzog  Karl,  ein  Meister  in  der  Kunst  fUrstlichen  Reprasentierens,  ihn 
zum  Modell  gedient  hatte  ?  " 


CHAPTER   II 
^be  TRobbere 

O  iiber  mich  Narren,  der  ich  wahnete  die  Welt  durch  Greuel 
zu  verschonern  und  die  Gesetze  durch  Gesetzlosigkeit  aufrecht 
zu  erhalten. — '  The  Robbers '. 

After  leaving  the  academy  Schiller  soon  began  to 
look  about  for  a  publisher  of  his  precious  manuscript. 
Not  finding  one  he  presently  decided  to  borrow  money 
and  print  the  play  at  his  own  expense.  It  appeared 
in  the  spring  of  1781,  accompanied  by  a  modest  pref- 
ace in  which  the  anonymous  author  pronounced  his 
work  unsuited  to  the  stage  but  hoped  it  would  be  ac- 
ceptable as  a  moral  contribution  to  literature.  In  less 
than  a  year  it  had  been  played  with  ever  memorable 
success  and  ere  long  it  was  the  talk  of  Germany. 

In  dealing  with  *  The  Robbers '  it  has  always  been 
much  easier  to  point  out  faults  than  to  do  justice. 
Schiller  himself  set  the  fashion  of  a  drastic  criticism 
which  had  the  effect  of  advertising  *  The  Robbers  *  as 
a  violent  youthful  explosion  containing  more  to  be 
apologized  for  than  to  be  admired.  And  indeed  it  is 
^ot  a  masterpiece  of  good  taste.  Upon  an  adult  mind 
possessing  some  knowledge  of  the  world's  dramatic 
literature  at  its  best,  and  particularly  if  the  piece  be 
read  and  not  seen,  Schiller's  first  play  is  very  apt  to 
produce  the  impression  of  a  boyish  extravaganza.   The 

31 


32  The  Robbers 

/sentimental  bandit  who  nourishes  his  mighty  soul  on 
/  the  blood  of  his  fellow-men,  and  undertakes  to  right  a 
j  private  wrong  by  running  amuck  against  society  in 
\  another  part  of  the  world,  is  a  figure  upon  which  we 
V^  decline  to  waste  oui;  sympathy.  We  have  no  place  for 
him  in  our  scheme  of  art  unless  it  be  in  comic  opera  or 
in  the  penny  dreadful.  Emotionally  we  have  lost 
touch  with  him  as  we  have  with  Byron's  Corsair. 
When  he  stalks  across  the  serious  stage  and  rages  and 
fumes  and  wipes  his  bloody  sword,  we  are  inclined  to 
smile  or  to  yawn.  As  for  the  villain  Franz,  with  his 
abysmal  depravity,  and  Amalia,  with  her  witless  sen- 
timentalism,  we  find  it  Tiard  to  take  them  seriously; 
they  do  not  produce  a  good  illusion.  And  then  the 
whole  style  of  the  piece,  the  violent  and  ribald  lan- 
guage, the  savage  action,  the  rant  and  swagger,  the 
shooting  and  stabbing, — all  this  seems  at  first  calcu- 
lated for  the  entertainment  of  young  savages,  and 
moves  one  to  approve  the  oft-quoted  mot  of  the  Ger- 
man prince  who  said  to  Goethe:  *  If  I  had  been  God 
and  about  to  create  the  world,  and  had  I  foreseen  that 
Schiller  would  write  *  The  Robbers '  in  it,  I  should  not 
have  created  it.'^ 

This  is  one  side  of  the  story.  The  other  side  is  that 
*  The  Robbers '  made  an  epoch  in  German  dramatic 
literature.  Not  only  is  it  thestrongest  and  completest 
expression  of  the  eighteenth-century  storm  and  stress, 
but  it  proved  a  highly  effective  stage-play.  Nor  was 
its  success  ephemeral.  Its  author  quickly  outgrew  it, 
but  it  maintained  itself  during  the  entire  period  of  Ger- 
many's leadership  in  matters  of  dramatic  art,  and  even 
*  Eckermann's  ''Gesprache  mit  Goethe",  under  date  of  Jan.  17,  1827. 


The  Schubart  Story  33 

to-day  it  preserves  much  of  its  old  vitality.  It  is  true 
that  when  a  modern  audience  assembles  to  see  a  per- 
formance of  *  The  Robbers ',  they  are  not  impelled 
solely  by  the  intrinsic  merits  of  the  piece.  Loyalty  to 
the  great  dramatic  poet  of  the  nation  plays  its  part. 
People  think :  Thus  our  Schiller  began, — and  they 
expect  to  make  allowances.  But  when  all  such  allow- 
ances are  made,  it  remains  true  that  *  The  Robbers '  is 
a  powerful  stage-play  which  reveals  in  every  scene 
the  hand  of  the  born  dramatist.  We  may  call  it  boy- 
ish if  we  will,  but  its  boyishness  is  like  that  of  '  Titus 
Andronicus  '.  Each  is  the  work  of  a  young  giant  who 
in  learning  the  use  of  his  hammer  lays  about  him  some- 
what wildly  and  makes  a  tremendous  hubbub.  But 
Thor  is  Thor,  and  such  boys  are  not  born  every  day. 

The  starting-point  of  Schiller's  invention  was  the 
conception  of  the  two  hostile  brothers,  and  this  he  had 
from  Schubart,  although  other  writers,  notably  Klinger 
and  Leisewitz,  had  already  made  use  of  it  in  dramatic 
productions.  In  the  Schubart  story  V  we  hear  of  a 
nobleman  with  two  sons,  of  whom  the  elder,  Karl,  is 
high-minded  but  dissolute,  while  the  younger,  Wil- 
helm,  is  a  hypocritical  zealot.  Karl  plays  the  role  of 
the  prodigal  son  and  his  excesses  are  duly  reported  at 
home  by  his  brother.  After  a  while  the  sinner  repents 
and  writes  his  father  a  remorseful  letter,  which  is  in- 
tercepted by  Wilhelm.  Then  the  older  brother  re- 
turns to  the  vicinity  of  his  home  and  takes  service  with 
a  poor  farmer.     Here  it  falls  to  his  lot  to  rescue  his 

1  The  Schubart  story  is  reprinted  by  Weltrich,  I,  p.  183  ff. ,  who  at- 
tempts to  trace  its  provenience.  It  was  not  entirely  fiction.  Cf.  Minor, 
I,  298,  to  whom  this  chapter  is  indebted  in  many  places. 


34  The  Robbers 

father  from  the  hands  of  assassins.  It  turns  out  that 
the  instigator  of  the  murder  was  no  other  than  Wil- 
helm.  When  the  plot  is  discovered  the  magnanimous 
Karl  entreats  pardon  for  his  vile  brother.  His  prayer 
is  granted,  Wilhelm  receives  a  share  of  the  estate  and 
all  ends  in  happy  tears. — In  publishing  the  sketch 
Schubart  recommended  it  to  the  geniuses  of  the  day  as 
an  excellent  foundation  for  a  novel  or  a  comedy.  Here 
was  a  chance,  he  thought,  to  prove  that  the  Germans, 
notwithstanding  the  servility  of  their  pens,  were  not 
the  spiritless  race  that  foreigners  saw  in  them;  'to 
show  that  we  too,  in  spite  of  our  oppressive  forms  of 
government,  which  permit  only  a  condition  of  passivity, 
are  men  who  have  their  passions  and  can  act,  no  less 
than  a  Frenchman  or  a  Briton.'  He  therefore  cau- 
tioned any  playwright,  who  might  try  his  hand  upon 
the  subject  to  lay  the  scene  not  in  a  foreign  country 
but  in  contemporary  Germany. 

We  see  here  the  thought  that  struck  fire  in  the  mind 
of  young  Schiller,  whose  bent  was  all  for  tragedy.  If 
there  was  to  be  a  proof  that  strong  passion  and  bold 
action  were  still  possible,  notwithstanding  the  degen- 
eracy of  the  age,  what  better  object  could  there  be  for 
the  passion  to  wreak  itself  upon  than  the  age  itself.^ 
If  life  had  become  vapid,  and  the  German  character 
servile  and  pusillanimous,  here  was  the  very  field  for  a 
mad  Ajax  who  should  make  havoc  among  the  cowards 
and  the  pigmies.  In  Schubart's  tragi-comedy  there  are 
no  heroic  passions  whatever.  Nothing  is  conceived  in 
a  large  and  bold  way.  The  characters  live  and  move 
throughout  in  the  little  world  of  their  own  selfish  inter- 
ests.    Such  a  piece,  in  which  the  penitent  hero  bends  his 


Storm-and-Strcss  Predecessors  35 

back  to  the  plow  and  weakly  pardons  an  abominable 
crime,  did  not  comport  with  Schiller's  mood  of  fierce 
indignation.     So  he  converted  the  story  into  a  tragedy'  I 
and  turned  Schubart's  meek  and  forgiving  prodigal  into  / 
a  terrible  avenger  of  mankind.  ^^ J 

In  the  contrasted  brothers  we  see  what  Minor  ^  well 
enough  calls  the  hot  and  cold  passions.  ^Karl  isahot-  \ 
spur  whose  emotions  are  always  keyed  up  to  the  high-   » 
est  pitch;  he  is  never  calm  and  is  incapable  of  sober 
reasoning.     His  boiling  blood  and  his  insensate  ambi- 
tion are  his  only  oracles.     We  may  say  that  his  mo- 
tives are  lofty,  but  in  trying  to  set  the  world  right  and  / 
make  it  conform  to  his  perfervid  dreams  of  justice  and  / 
freedom,  he  becomes  a  madman  and  a  criminal.     Franz,  \ 
on  the  other  hand,  represents  the  scheming  intellect 
sundered  from  conscience  and  natural  feeling.  ~Tle  is 
a  monster  of  cool,   calculating,   hypocritical    villainy,  f 
At  the  end  he  cowers  in  abject  terror  before  the  phan-  i 
tom  conscience  that  he  has  reasoned  out  of  existence  | 
in  the  first  act.     The  portrait  of  the  two  brothers,  as 
thus  conceived,  is  crudely  simple.     There  are  no  deli-  \ 
cacies  of  shading,  no  subtleties  of  psychological  analy-    I 
sis.     In  short,  Robber  Moor  and  his  brother  give  the    I 
impression  of  having  been  made  to  a  scheme  rather   1 
than  copied  from  nature.     Nevertheless  the  scheme  is  f 
conceived  with  superb  audacity  and  executed  with  a 
dramatic  power  and  insight  that  had  never  been  sur- 
passed in  Germany. 

To  understand  the  furore  created  by  *  The  Robbers ' 
one  should  read  two  other  storm-and-stress  plays,  by 
writers  of  no  mean  dramatic  talent,  which  present  the 

^  "  Schiller,  sein  Leben  und  seine  Werke,"  I,  299. 


$6  The  Robbers 

same  fundamental  situatijwi^j;^ The  Twins',  by  Klin- 
ger,  and  'Julius  of  Tarentum',  by  Leisewitz.  Both 
these  plays  came  out  in  the  year  1776  and  were  evi- 
dently studied  with  care  by  Sdiiller.  Both  follow  the 
timid  example  which  had  been  set  by  Lessing  of  lay- 
ing the  scene  in  a  foreign  land.  Klinger  gives  us  two 
brothers,  Guelfo  and  Ferdinando,  of  whom  neither  the 
mother  nor  her  physician  can  tell  which  was  born  first. 
But  Ferdinando  has  always  been  treated  as  the  elder, 
has  enjoyed  the  favor  of  his  father,  risen  to  power  and 
distinction  and  won  the  prize  in  love.  He  is  of  a  noble 
and  forgiving  temper  and  plays  only  a  subordinate  part. 
The  hero  is  Guelfo,  who,  like  Schiller's  Karl  Moor, 
has  read  Plutarch  and  would  fain  do  something  great, 
like  Brutus  or  Cassius.  But  he  remains  after  all  only 
a  poor  knight.  His  hand  is  unnerved  and  his  heroic 
spirit  paralyzed  by  the  suspicion  that  he  has  been  the 
life-long  victim  of  a  conspiracy;  that  he  and  not  Fer- 
dinando is  the  elder  brother.  The  whole  interest  of 
the  play  turns  upon  the  portraiture  of  his  morbid,  in- 
sensate jealousy.  In  the  fourth  act  he  takes  a  morn- 
ing ride  with  his  brother  and  murders  him.  Then  he 
defiantly  reports  the  deed  at  home  and  is  himself  slain 
by  his  father. 

/       ^  Bitter  family  feuds,  and  particularly  the  fiction  of  the  hostile  broth - 
/    ers, — with    motives  of   rivalry,    jealousy   and    hatred,    with   paternal 
/     curses  and  parricide  and  fratricide  and  filicide, — were  just  then  a  liter- 
Vary  fashion.     It  is  worth  noting  in  this  connection  that  J.  M.  R.  Lenz 
published  in  1776  a  story  entitled  "Die  beiden  Alten",  in  which  a  son 
shuts  up  his  father  in  a  cellar  and  sends  a  man  to  kill  him.     But  the 
man's  heart  fails  him  and  the   prisoner  escapes, — to  reappear  like  a 
ghost  among  his  kin.     That  Schiller  read  this  story  is  at  any  rate  think- 
able, though  there  is  no  direct  evidence  of  the  fact 


:^aa^ 


nny)  W^X^hr 


Comparison  with  Klingcr  and  Leisewitz     37 

In  Julius  of  Tarentiun*^  the  younger  brother,  Guido, 
is,  again,  the  man  of  action;  a  miles  gloriosus  who 
boasts  of  his  strong  arm  and  dreams  of  glory.  He 
looks  with  contempt  and  hatred  upon  his  gentle,  senti- 
mental brother  Julius,  who,  though  heir  to  the  throne, 
prepares  to  renounce  his  career  because  he  is  thwarted 
in  love.  The  girl  Cecilia,  upon  whom  he  has  fixed  his 
affections,  is  not  deemed  a  suitable  bride  for  him  by 
his  father  and  has  been  shut  up  in  a  convent.  He  de- 
termines to  abduct  her  by  night  and  flee  with  her  to 
some  romantic  spot  in  the  far  north.  In  the  execution  of 
this  purpose  he  is  killed  by  his  jealous  brother  Guido, 
who  is  then  made  to  suffer  death  at  the  hands  of  his 
own  father. 

In  both  these  plays  we  have,  as  in  *  The  Robbers  ','t  * 
an  aged  father  whose  dynastic  hopes  center  in  an  ex-  '; 
cellent  son;  this  son  the  object  of  mad  jealousy  on  the 
part  of  a  younger  brother,  and  both  brothers  in  love 
with  the  same  girl.  The  plays  exhibit  talent  of  a  high 
order,  but  talent  that  always  falls  short  of  genius. 
Psychical  states  are  portrayed  by  means  of  talk,  and 
the  talk  is  big  enough;  but  very  little  actually  hap- 
pens. The  mighty  passions  have  to  be  taken  largely 
upon  trust  and  the  conversation  often  drags.  Dra- 
matic possibilities  are  not  fully  grasped,  the  situations 
are  felt  but  not  seen,  and  there  is  an  obvious  reluctance 
to  make  unusual  demands  upon  the  stage.  Even 
Klinger,  whose  play  of  *  Storm  and  Stress '  gave  a 
name  to  the  whole  contemporary  movement  in  German 
literature,  reads  tamely  enough  in  comparison  with 
^  The  Robbers '.  But  what  is  most  noteworthy  of  all, 
Klinger  and  Leisewitz  give  us  simply  dynasti£,,trage- 


i- 


38  The  Robbers 

dies.  In  both  the  outlook  is  limited  to  the  fortunes  of 
a  single  house.  In  both  we  miss  the  great  dramatist 
who  looks  upon  life  with  a  roving  eye  and  intertwines 
his  tale  of  private  woe  with  the  larger  tangle  of  human 
destiny. 

This  last  is  what  the  young  Schiller  did  with  mas- 
terly insight.  He  converted  the  dynastic  tragedy  of 
his  predecessors  into  a  tragedy  of  the  social  revolution  p 
and  his  work  has  lived  because  we  can  hear  in  it  TEe' 
preliminary  roar  of  the  storm  which  was  soon  to  burst 
in  the  streets  of  Paris.*  He  laid  his  scene  not  in  far-off 
Italy  nor  in  the  remote  past,  but  in  Germany  and  in 
the  middle  of  the  century  which  boasted  of  its  enlight- 
ened philosophy  and  its  excellent  police  regulations. 
Of  the  two  brothers  he  took  the  sentimentalist  for  his 
hero,  but  made  him  at  the  same  time  a  man  of  action, 
a  man  of  heroic  mould  and  a  self-helper.  X^^-J^-Si^. 
of  Rousseau  finds  in  Karl-Mooj  a  practical  interpreter. 
What  the  Frenchman  had  preached  concerning  the  in- 
,f  famies  of  civilization,  the  badness  of  society  and  poli- 
j  tics,  the  reign  of  injustice  and  unreason,  the  petty 
I  squabbles  of  the  learned,  the  necessity  of  a  return  to 
^  nature, — all  this  seethes  in  the  blood  of  Moor,  but  he 
does  not  content  himself  with  indignant  rhetoric  or 
sentimental  repining.  He  takes  arms  against  the  sea 
of  troubles.  Instead  of  an  excellent  youth  pitifully 
done  to  death  by  a  jealous  brother,  we  get  a  towering 

/  ^  Cf.  Minor,  I,  300:  "Die  Rauber  des  jungen  Schiller,  welcher  sich 
/  damals  nicht  einmal  um  den  nordamerikanischen  Freiheitskrieg,  ge- 
/  schweige  denn  um  das  gewitterschwUlc  Frankreich  bekummerte,  waren 
I  nur  ein  Symptom  und  eine  Vorahnung  ;  eine  Wirkung  im  Kleinen  vor 
I     der  groszen  Katastrophc. " 


Influence  of  Rousseau  and  Goethe         39 

idealist  who  is  the  moulder  of  his  own  fate.  With  sub- 
lime vfipiz  he  takes  it  upon  himself  to  wield  the  aveng- 
ing bolts  of  Jove,  but  finds  that  Jove  rejects  his  assist- 
ance. He  errs  disastrously  in  his  judgment,  like  any 
short-sighted  mortal,  and  his  work  goes  all  agley. 
But  when  the  end  comes  it  is  not  depressing.  We  see 
no  longer  a  revolting  fratricide  and  the  painful  sacri- 
fice of  virtue  to  the  meanest  of  passions,  but  the  verdict  \ 
of  the  gods  upon. human- presumption.  ~~^    ^  ^/ 

In  making  his  hero  a  defiant  self-helper  and  sending 
him  with  sword  in  hand  against  the  minions  of  the 
established  order,  Schiller  was  obviously  influenced  by 
the  example  of  '  Gotz  von  Berlichingen '.  Like  Gotz^_ 
Karl  Moor  regards  himself  as  the  champion  of  freedom 
against  the  law,  which  is  its  enemy.  Both  are  friends 
of  the  oppressed  and  haters  of  pedantry  and  pettifog- 
gery. Both  fight  like  lions  against  tremendous  odds. 
Both  assume  the  leadership  of  a  band  of  outlaws  whom 
they  cannot  control,  and  thus  become  responsible  for 
revolting  crimes  not  foreseen  or  intended.  But  along 
with  these  and  other  resemblances  that  might  be 
pointed  out  there  is  an  important  difference.  In  the 
fourth  act  of  the  earlier  play  a  Heilbronn  Councillor 
says  to  Gotz:  *  We  owe  no  faith  to  a  robber.'  Whereat 
Gotz  exclaims:  '  If  you  did  not  wear  the  emperor's 
emblem,  which  I  honor  in  the  vilest  counterfeit,  you 
should  take  back  that  word  or  choke  upon  it.  Mine  is 
an  honorable  feud.'  That  is,  the  knight  of  the  six- 
teenth century  repudiates  the  name  in  which  Karl 
Moor  glories.  Says  Schiller's  Pater  in  the  second  act: 
*  And  you,  pretty  captain  !  Duke  of  cutpurses  !  King 
of  scoundrels  !     Great  Mogul  of  all  rogues  under  the 


40  The  Robbers 

sun  ! '  To  which  Moor  replies  :  '  Very  true.  Very 
true.  Just  proceed.*  In  comparison  with  such  a  dare- 
devil Goethe's  hero  seems  to  roar  like  a  sucking  dove. 
In  his  own  mind  Gotz  never  really  burns  the  bridge 
behind  him.  He  is  at  heart  a  loyalist  who  recognizes 
the  emperor's  claim  to  his  allegiance.  As  a  free  im- 
perial knight  he  feels  himself  within  his  right  under  the 
feudal  system.  In  resisting  his  enemies  he  does  not 
set  himself  in  opposition  to  governmental  authority 
per  se^  but  only  to  the  abuse  of  authority  by  subordi- 
nates who  disgrace  their  master  and  his.  And  in  as- 
suming the  leadership  of  the  insurgent  rabble  he  thinks 
to  restrain  their  ferocity  and  thus  earn  the  thanks  of 
the  supreme  authority. — It  remained  for  Schiller  to 
convert  this  rude  self-helper  in  the  age  of  expiring 
feudalism  into  a  savage  anarchist  in  the  boastful  age  ofL, 
I  enlightenment. 

It  was  a  bold  idea  to  be  conceived  by  a  youth  in  a 
school  where  every  third  word  was  of  virtue  and  phi- 
lanthropy. Not  that  there  was  anything  particularly 
audacious  in  a  strong  presentation  of  the  spirit  of 
revolt.  For  some  time  past  this  spirit  had  been 
nourished  by  the  writings  of  Rousseau  and  those  who 
followed  in  his  wake,  until*  attacks  upon  the  social 
order,  in  some  phase  of  it,  had  come  to  be  almost  the 
staple  of  literature.  But  the  attacks  had  not  been  very 
dangerous.  Either  they  were  veiled  by  a  distant  set- 
ting of  the  scene,  or  the  indictment  of  the  age  was 
presented  incidentally  in  connection  with  some  lacri- 
mose  tragedy  of  the  individual.  People  had  learned  to 
sigh  and  weep  that  things  should  be  so,  but  there  the 
matter  ended.     The  German  princeling  could  look  on 


Earlier  Attacks  on  the  Social  Order       41 

with  equanimity,  assured  that  the  rhetoric  and  the 
tears  did  not  mean  him,  or  that  if  they  did  it  did  not 
matter.  In  real  life  those  who  felt  themselves  op- 
pressed by  the  civilization  of  Europe  could  emigrate, 
and  they  did  emigrate  in  large  numbers.  This  was 
one  form  of  the  return  to  nature.     In  literature,  how- 


ever, the  usual  expedient  was  to  let  the  hero  chafe 
himself  to  death  and  go  down,  without  striking  a  blow, 
before  the  irresistible  tyranny  of  the  established  order. 
Schiller's  hero  is  of  another  ilk.  Romantic  flight  with 
his  lady-love  does  not  occur  to  him.  Surrender  to  the 
wrong  is  out  of  the  question.  He  finds  another  form 
for  the  return  to  nature  and  puts  into  practice  the 
maxim.  Here  or  nowhere  is  America.  He  stays  and 
fights  at  the  head  of  a  troop  of  bandits.  Thus  the  play 
which  was  originally  to  have  been  called  '  The  Lost 
Son  '  became  *  The  Robbers  '.  •«> 

In  their  way,  then,  Schiller's  outlaws  stand  for  the 
state  of  nature.  They  represent  natural  man  rising  in 
brute  strength  against  the  oppressions  of  a  depraved 
society.  Such  at  least  is  Karl  Moor's  construction  of 
the  matter  when  he  says  to  the  Pater  :  '  Tell  them  that 
my  business  is  retribution,  that  my  trade  is  vengeance.' 
Under  our  modern  development  of  the  social  sentiment 
we  can  hardly  imagine  a  really  high-minded  youth 
setting  out  in  such  a  Quixotic  and  fanatical  enterprise. 
This  feature  of  Schiller's  plot,  which  has  for  us  some- 
thing of  the  burlesque  about  it,  has  been  taken  more 
than  any  other  to  prove  his  inexperience  of  life.  But 
the  fact  is  that  the  thing  was  after  all  not  so  unthink- 
able. Outlawry  on  a  large  scale  was  by  no  means  un- 
known, and  the  romance  of  outlawry  was  familiar  in 


42  The  Robbers 

literature.  The  Thirty  Years'  War  had  familiarized 
Germany  with  marauding  bands  who  recognized  no 
authority  save  that  of  their  leader.  Even  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century  the  brigandage  which  was  common  in 
the  Mediterranean  countries  continued  to  flourish  in 
Southern  Germany.  As  late  as  1781,  the  very  year  in 
which  *  The  Robbers  *  appeared,  we  hear  of  the  cap- 
ture in  Bavaria  of  a  band  of  outlaws  numbering  nearly 
a  thousand  men.  The  year  1771  witnessed  the  exe- 
cution of  the  robber-chieftain  Klostermayer,  who,  under 
the  name  of  the  Bavarian  Hiesel,  became  the  subject 
of  an  idealizing  saga  in  which  we  recognize  the  essen- 
tial features  of  Karl  Moor.^ 

Schiller's  main  fiction  was  thus,  in  a  sense,  war- 
ranted by  the  facts  ;  and  it  gains  further  in  artistic 
plausibility  when  we  consider  that  the  idealized  bandit 
,was  already  a  familiar  type  in  literature.  The  author  of 
*  The  Robbers '  was  acquainted  with  Robin  Hood,  and 
he  had  probably  read  '  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona ', 
in  which  the  banished  Valentine  becomes  the  captain 
of  a  band  of  outlaws  on  condition  that  they  "do  no 
outrages  on  silly  women  or  poor  passengers  ",  and  the 
outlaws  reply  that  they  *'  detest  such  vile,  base  prac- 
tices.f^  He  had  also  read,  in  *  Don  Quixote',  of  the 
high-toned  robber,  Roque  Guinart,'who  had  more  of 
compassion  in  his  nature  than  cruelty.  Cervantes 
makes  Roque  comment  thus  upon  his  mode  of  life  : 
**  Injuries  which  I  could  not  brook  and  thirst  for  re- 
venge first  led  me  into  it  contrary  to  my  nature  ;  for 
the  savage  asperity  of  my  present  behavior  is  a  dis- 

»  Cf.  Minor,  I,  313  ff. 
'  Act  IV,  scene  i. 


The  Noble  Bandit  in  Literature  43 

grace  to  my  heart,  which  is  gentle  and  humane."  At 
the  end  of  the  episode  Roque  sends  his  captives  away 
"admiring  his  generosity,  his  gallantry,  and  his  ex- 
traordinary conduct,  and  looking  upon  him  rather  ^^^-^ 
an  Alexander  the  Great  than  as  a  notorious  robberi^H^ 
Here  was  a  sufficient  hint  for  a  criminal  in  the  grand 
style,  who  should  imagine  himself  the  spiritual  con- 
gener of  Plutarch's  heroes. 

*  A  singular  Don  Quixote  whom  we  abominate  and 
love,  admire  and  pity ', — such  was  Schiller's  own  for- 
mula for  his  first  dramatic  hero.  From  the  standpoint 
of  ordinary  logic  it  must  be  admitted  that  Moor's 
motive  for  becoming  a  robber  (the  lying  letter  that  he 
receives  from  Franz)  is  quite  insufficient.  He  is  duped 
too  easily  and  should  have  known  his  brother  better. 
He  is  too  ready  to  give  up  everything  dear  to  him,  in- 
^lu32lgrdTCdear  Amalia.     *  I  have  no  sweetheart  any 


stamp.  In  any  case  the  wrong  that  has  been  done  him 
is  a  private  wrong  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
constitution  of  society.  One  does  not  see  how  it  is  Jo 
be  righted  or  how  the  world  is  to  be  purged  of  such 
baseness  by  killing  and  plundering  people  in  the  Bo- 
hemian Forest. 

The  only  reply  which  our  drama  makes  to  this  ob- 
jection is  to  be  found  in  Moor's  crazy  ambition  for  dis- 
tinction. He  has  the  '  grcat-man-mania  '.  What  at- 
"Tracts  him  in  the  career  of  crime  is  not  the  wickedness 
but  the  bignesaof  it ;  the  opportunity  of  lifting  himself 
above  the  common  herd  and  sending  his  name  down 
to  posterity  as  that  of  a  very  extraordinary  person.    *  I 

»  " Don  Quixote,"  Chapter  89. 


44  The  Robbers 

loathe  this  ink-spattering  century  *,  he  says,  '  when  I 
read  in  my  Plutarch  of  great  men.  .  .  .  I  am  to  squeeze 
my  body  into  a  corset  and  lace  up  my  will  in  laws.  .  .  . 
Law  has  never  made  a  great  man,  but  freedom  hatches 
out  colossi  and  extremes.  O  that  the  spirit  of  Hermann 
were  still  glowing  in  the  ashes  !  Place  me  at  the 
head  of  an  army  of  fellows  like  myself,  and  Germany 
shall  become  a  republic  in  comparison  with  which 
.ome  and  Sparta  were  nunneries.'  Such  monstrous 
egotism  needs  no  motive,  but  only  an  occasion,  for 
breaking  with  the  order  of  civilization.  An  occasion 
.is  furnished  by  the  letter. 

But  that  which  marks  Karl  Moor  as  a  genuine  child 
of  Schiller's  imagination  and  of  the  sentimental  age  is 
h  his  combination  of  virile  energy..wlth„SDfl:Theartedness 
v-^  and  true  nobility  of  feeling.     In  all  his  robbings  and 
burnings  he  does  not  become  vulgarized  like  his  com- 
rades.    He  imagines  that  he  is  engaged  in  a  righteous 
f^/    work  and  has  God  on  his  side.     For  this  reason  he  has 
a  right  to  his  melting  moods,  as,  for  example,  in  the 
famous   and  oft-praised  scene  on  the  Danube.     ThL§_. 
delicacy  of  feeling,  which  to  an  American  or  English- 
"man  is  apt  to  seem  absurd  in  a  bandit-chief  who  is  en- 
gaged in  wholesale  crime,  is  an  essential  part  of  Moor's 
character.     It  is  this  which,  on  German  soil,  gave  to 
*  The  Robbers '  tragic  interest  and  insured  its  immor- 
tality.    One  sees  all  along  that  Moor  is  a  wanderer  in 
the  dark,  and  one  can  sympathize  with  his  purposes 
and  his  dreams   while   detesting   his    conduct.      This 
makes  him  a  heroic  figure.    And  when  the  clearing-up 
comes  and  he  discovers  that  he  has  been  the  victim 
not  of  society  but  of  an  individual  villain  ;  that  his  at- 


Karl  Moor^s  Sentimentalism  45 

tempt  to  right  wrongs  by  committing  new  wrongs,  to 
enforce  the  laws  by  lawlessness,  and  to  correct  vio- 
lence by  violence,  was  nothing  but  presumptuous  and 
criminal  folly, — when  all  this  becomes  clear  to  him,  we 
have  a  tragic  situation  of  the  most  pathetic  character*- 
This  element  of  high  tragic  pathos  was  first  given  to  a 
German  drama  by  Schiller.  It  had  not  been  given  by 
Goethe  and  Lessing,  nor  was  it  in  them  to  give  it. 
This  is  why  German  tragedy  in  the  true  sense  may  be 
said  to  have  its  beginning  in  *  The  Robbers '. 

That  Schiller  in  a  sense  sympathized  with  his  hero 
is  undeniable.  What  gives  vitality  to  the  character  is 
here  as  always  the  fact  that  the  author  looked  into  his 
own  heart  and  then  wrote.  This,  however,  only  means 
that  the  moods  of  Moor  are  veritable  moods  of  Schiller, 
raised  to  a  white  heat  and  translated  into  action.  The 
young  student,  dreaming  the  dreams  of  youth  and  pin- 
ing for  freedom  and  action,  had  more  than  once  felt 
his  gorge  rise  to  the  choking-point  as  he  found  himself  | 
forced  to  plod  on  among  the  dull,  oppressive,  unheroic 
facts  of  life  ;  and  those  acts  of  official  villainy  against 
which  Moor  draws  the  sword  he  had  himself  seen 
flourishing  unavenged  in  his  native  Wiirttemberg.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  was  never  for  a  moment  insensi- 
ble to  the  moral  hideousness  and  the  tragic  folly  of 
Moor's  conduct.  It  was  to  be  sublime,  but  insane  and 
calamitous  nevertheless.  One  is  justified  in  thinking, 
therefore,  that  Goedeke  goes  too  far,  or  does  not  ex- 
press the  truth  felicitously,  when  he  says  that  the 
author  of  *  The  Robbers '  '  felt  himself  one '  with  his 
hero.^     He  felt   himself  one  with    certain    phases    of 

1  "  Grundrisz  zur  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Dichtung",  V,  19. 


46  The  Robbers 

Moor's  thought  and  feeling  ;  for  the  rest,  however,  the 
robber-chieftain  was  to  be  abominated  as  well  as  ad- 
mired. There  has  been  too  much  of  the  tendency  to  see 
in  '  The  Robbers  '  only  a  personal  document ;    only  a 

"^  youth's  incoherent  cry  for  liberty.  The  piece  is  a 
work  of  art,  duly  calculated  with  reference  to  artistic 
effects. 

Turning  now  from  the  figure  of  Karl  to  that  of  his 
brother,  one  is  struck  at  once  with  the  artificiality  of 
the  portrait.  We  seem  to  have  before  us  in  Franz 
Moor  the  result  of  a  deliberate  effort  to  conceive  the_ 
vilest  ^Qssible  travesty  of  human  nature.  Nothing 
here  that  was  copied  from  nature,  nothing  that  Schiller 
found  in  his  own  heart.  It  is  all  a  brain-spun  creation, 
born  of  his  dramatic  reading  and  of  his  studies  in 
medicine  and  philosophy.  In  the  first  place  we  can 
observe  that  Franz  is   studiously  contrasted  with  his 

jTbrother.     Karl  is  an  idealist  and  a  man  of  sentiment ; 

1  Franz  is  a  materialist  to  whom  the  natural  emotions  of 

^he  heart  are  objects  of  cynical  derision.  For  Karl, 
who  knows  his  Klopstock  as  well  as  his  Plutarch,  love 
is  a  transcendental  dream  foretelling  a  spiritual  union 

f  in  a  world  without  end  ;  for  Franz  it  is  carnal  appe- 
tite. Karl  wears  his  heart  upon  his  sleeve  ;  Franz  is 
wily  and  hypocritical.  The  one  is  handsome  and 
chivalrous,  the  other  ill-favored  and  cruel. 

The  jealous  cadet  who  plots  criminally  against  his 
more  fortunate  brother  is  common  to  both  Leisewitz 
and  Klinger,  but  in  neither  is  he  an  intriguing  villain*.- 
In  *  Julius  of  Tarentum '  Guido  is  really  the  more  mas- 
terful man  of  the  two.  He  despises  his  brother  as  a 
weakling  and  asserts  no  other  claim  than  that  of  the 


The  Portrait  of  Franz  Moor  47 

strongest.  In  Klinger's  play,  as  we  have  seen,  every- 
thing is  made  to  turn  upon  Guide's  cankering  doubt  of 
his  brother's  seniority.  One  gets  the  impression  that  if 
the  doubt  could  be  settled  by  indisputable  evidence  in 
favor  of  Ferdinando,  there  would  be  no  casus  belli ; 
the  younger  son  would  bow  to  the  law  of  primogeni- 
ture and  that  would  end  the  matter.  Schiller,  how- 
ever, felt  the  need  of  a  bolder  contrast  to  his  hero. 
The  *  sublime  criminal '  required  a  colossal  foil ;  and 
as  equality  with  the  sword  was  out  of  the  question,  the 
most   obvious  recourse  was  to  pit  natural   depravity 

against  natural  greatness ;    scheming  intellect  against 

hpt  blqod.^ 

In  working  out  his  conception  Schiller  took  counsel 
freely  of  Shakspere,  whose  name  had  now  become  for 
young  Germany  the  symbol  of  all  things  great  in 
dramatic  writing.  The  first  soliloquy  of  Franz  Moor_ 
reminds  one  at  once  of  Edmund  in  *  Lear ',  though 
there  is  none  of  the  kind  of  borrowing  which  makes 
easy  prey  for  the  philologist.  Both  villains  covet  the  \ 
wealth  and  station  of  a  preferred  brother ;  both  make 
use  of  a  specious  obstetrical  argument  and  both  operate 
with  forged  letters.  In  general,  however,  the  portrait  >^ 
of  Franz  was  more  influenced  by  Richard  the  Third 
than  by  Edmund,  or  lago,  or  any  of  the  other  Shak- 
sperian  villains.  Franz  is  the  British  Richard  divested 
of  his  Shaksperian  lordliness,  transferred  to  a  humbler 
sphere  of  action  and  provided  with  the  mental  outfit 
of  an  eighteenth-century  philosopher  as  seen  by  hostile 
critics.  Both  descant  on  their  own  deformity  and 
confide  to  the  public  their  villainous  designs.  But 
while  Richard  speaks  in  a  tone  of  genial  cynicism,  as 


48  The  Robbers 

if  his  principal  concern  were  only  to  bring  a  little  vari- 
ety into  the  tameness  of  *'  these  fair,  well-spoken  days  ", 
the  German  villain  solemnly  turns  himself  inside  out 
and  regales  us  ad  nauseam  with  the  metaphysics  of  in^^ 
ic|uity.     This  is  his  mode  of  reasoning  : 

Why  did  nature  put  upon  me  this  burden  of  ugliness — this 
Laplander's  nose,  this  Moorish  mouth,  these  Hottentot  eyes  ? 
Death  and  destruction  !  Why  was  she  such  a  partisan  ? — But 
no,  I  do  her  injustice.  She  gave  us  wit  when  she  placed  us 
naked  and  miserable  on  the  shore  of  this  great  ocean-world. 
Swim  who  can,  and  whoso  is  too  clumsy  let  him  sink.  The 
right  is  with  him  that  prevails.  Family  honor  ?  A  valuable  capi- 
tal for  him  that  knows  how  to  profit  by  it. — Conscience  ?  An  ex- 
cellent scarecrow  with  which  to  frighten  sparrows  from  cherrj-- 
trees. — Filial  love  ?  Where  is  the  obligation  ?  Did  my  father 
beget  me  because  he  loved  me  ?  Did  he  think  of  me  at  all  ?  Is 
there  anything  holy  in  his  gratification  of  carnal  appetite  ?  Or 
shall  I  love  him  because  he  loves  me  1  That  is  mere  vanity,  the 
usual  predilection  of  the  artist  for  his  own  work. 

Such  is  the  ethical  attitude  of  Franz  Moor,  as  we 
gather  it  from  his  first  soliloquy.  One  sees  that  Schil- 
ler was  concerned  to  portray  a  scoundrel  who  had 
read  deeply  and  come  to  the  conclusion  that  in  a  world 
like  this  there  is  no  valid  reason  why  a  man  should  be 
virtuous.  Evidently  the  author  had  himself  breathed 
the  mephitic  air  of  eighteenth-century  skepticism.  His 
natural  goodness  of  heart  safeguarded  him  from  cor- 
ruption, but  it  pleased  him  as  artist  to  dip  his  pen 
in  the  blackest  ink  and  draw  the  picture  of  the  devil 
with  whom  he  had  wrestled  in  moments  of  solitary 
musing. 
t  In  spite  of  his  intellectual  subtlety,  however,  Franz  is 
\gi  rather  dull  villain.     His  philosophical  and  physiolog- 


i^ 


Franz  Moor  a  Dull  Villain  49 

ical  pedantry — for  Schiller  endows  him  lavishly  with  the 
special  lore  of  the  medical  man — obfuscates  his  vision_ 
for  the  ordinary  facts  of  human  nature.  He  has  upon 
the  whole  a  more  intelligible  motive  for  his  rascality 
than  lago,  but  he  is  much  less  interesting,  much  less 
picturesque,  for  simple  lack  of  mother-wit.  What  a 
woeful  blunder,  for  example,  is  his  attempt  to  win  ^^ 
Amalia  by  depicting  her  absent  lover,  at  great  length 
and  with  all  manner  of  revolting  details,  as  the  victim 
of  the  most  loathsome  of  diseases  !  And  why  should 
such  a  crafty  schemer  risk  his  neck  and  put  himself  in 
the  hands  of  a  dangerous  confederate  for  the  purpose 
of  hastening  by _a  few  hours^  the -xlemise^  of  a  childish 
old  man  who  is  already  in  his  power.-*  And  in  his 
final  agony  of  terror,  when  we  should  expect  him  to 
hide  himself  or  try  to  escape,  how  absurd  that  he  ^ 
should  summon  Pastor  Moser  merely  for  the  purpose 
of  arguing  with  him  upon  immortality  and  judgment ! 
We  see  that  he  is  after  all  a  wretched  coward  who  has 
merely  cheated  us  into  the  belief  that  he  has  put  away 
the  superstitions  of  orthodox  belief,  while  in  reality 
they  still  linger  in  his  blood.  We  miss  in  him  the  in- 
vincible sang-froid  of  villainy  which  might  have  given 
a  touch  of  Shaksperian  grandeur  to  his  character.  As 
it  is,  he  is  not  grand,  but  pitiable  and  revolting.  When 
he  strangles  himself  with  his  hat-band,  one  is  quite  sat-  \^ 
isfied  with  the  unheroic  manner  of  his  taking-ofif. 

The  subordinate  characters  of  the  piece  are  hardly 
worth  discussing  at  any  length.  The  elder  Moor  is  a 
mere  nonentity, — a  dummy  in  a  rocking-chair  would 
have  done  as  well.  Evidently  Schiller  was  concerned 
to  make  "the  way  as  easy  as  possible  for  the  clumsy 


s^ 


5©  The  Robbers 

villainy  of  Franz.  A  more  vigorous  father,  he  may 
have  felt,  would  have  necessitated  a  more  subtle  and 
plausible  intrigue,  which  would  have  diverted  attention 
from  the  main  issue  of  the  contrasted  sons.  The 
heroine  Amalia  has  always  been  recognized,  and  was 
immediately  recognized  by  Schiller  himself,  as  the 
weakest  character  in  the  play.  But  posterity's  criticism 
is  hardly  that  formulated  by  him,  namely,  that  we  miss 
in  Amalia  the  'gentle,  suffering,  pining  thing — the 
maiden.'  ^  Of  gentle,  suffering,  pining  things  there  is 
no  dearth  in  the  German  drama,  and  they  were  not  in 
Schiller's  line.  Nearly  all  of  his  women  are  made  of 
heroic  stuff,  and  we  honor  him  not  the  less  for  that. 
^No  one  should  blame  Amalia  for  boxing  the  ears  of 
I  Franz  or  drawing  the  sword  upon  him ;  it  is  unlady- 
Niike  conduct,  but  very  good  storm-and-stress  realism. 
What  one  must  deplore,  however,  is  the  general  men- 
tal inadequacy  that  is  paired  with  this  spasmodic  energy 
of  scorn.  Common  sense  is  not  the  highest  of  dramatic 
qualities,  but  a  modicum  of  it  would  have  made  Schil- 
ler's first  heroine,  to  say  the  least,  more  interesting. 
She  has  no  power  of  initiative  and  seems  made  only  to 
be  duped.  Her  inability  to  recognize  her  lover  jn  the 
fourth  act  is  a  terrible  strain  upon  one's  patience.  In- 
deed the  whole  love-affair  between  her  and  Karl  is 
utterly  un-human.  What  can  one  think,  for  example 
of  a  pair  of  ecstatically  faithful  lovers  to  whom  it  has 
evidently  never  occurred  to  write  to  each  other  }  Here, 
if  anywhere,  one  recalls  Schiller's  oft-quoted  observa- 

1  Sammtliche  Schriften,  II,  365.  Citations  from  Schiller  refer,  unless 
otherwise  expressly  indicated,  to  Goedeke's  historico-critical  edition  in 
15  vols.  Stuttgart,  1867- 1876. 


The  Subordinate  Characters  51 

tion  that  he  had  attempted  in  '  The  Robbers '  to  depict 
human  beings  before  he  had  seen  any.^  Aside  from  his 
acquaintance  with  Franziska  von  Hohenheim,  and  an 
occasional  nearer  view  of  the  coy  maidens  of  the  ecole 
des  demoiselles,  the  female  sex  and  the  grand  passion 
were  for  him  only  bookish  mysteries. 

Of  the  subordinate  outlaws  there  are  several  whose 
portraits  are  very  well  drawn.  Here  Schiller  was  able 
to  profit  by  the  psychological  observations  he  had  made 
upon  his  comrades  in  the  academy.  There  were  no 
cutthroats  there,  but  there  were  traits  and  exploits, 
animosities  and  fidelities,  which  only  needed  to  be 
heated  in  the  poetic  crucible  in  order  to  befit  the  role 
of  robbers  in  the  Bohemian  Forest.  In  particular  we 
may  guess  that  the  blatherskite  Jew,  Spiegelberg,  with  "\ 
his  swaggering  self-conceit  and  his  bestial  vulgarity, 
was  copied  to  some  extent  from  life,  though  nothing 
definite  is  known  of  his  original.  Taken  as  a  whole  the 
robbers  form  a  picturesque  company,  each  with  his  own 
character.  Shakspere  would  probably  have  been 
content  to  say  'first  robber',  'second  robber',  etc.; 
but  for  Schiller,  accustomed  to  the  pose  of  leadership 
among  his  fellows,  to  company  drill  and  to  the  weigh- 
ing of  men  according  to  their  moral  qualities,  this  was 
not  enough.  There  had  to  be  sheep  and  goats,  classi- 
fied according  to  their  loyalty.  On  the  one  hand, 
closest  to  the  leader  stand  .the  devoted  Roller,  the,^ 
sturdy  Schweizer  and  the  romantic  idealist,  Kosinsky; 
on  the  other  are  the  envious  malcontent,  Spiegelberg, 
and  the  wretched  Schufterle.  The  others,  less  dis- 
tinctly characterized,  represent  the  mass. 

»  Sammtliche  Schriften,  III,  529. 


52  The  Robbers 

It  will  now  be  in  order  to  look  at  '  The  Robbers  '  a 
moment  from  the  point  of  view  of  dramatic  art.^  In  a 
suppressed  preface  to  the  first  edition  Schiller  expressed 
himself  very  contemptuously  with  regard  to  the  stage, 
declaring  that  he  had  essayed  a  dramatized  story  and 
not  a  stage-play.  He  would  not  advise  that  his  work 
be  put  upon  the  boards ;  for  the  rabble  of  the  theater 
would  not  understand  him,  would  take  him  for  an 
apologist  of  vice,  and  so  forth.  There  seems  no  good 
reason  to  doubt  the  essential  sincerity  of  these  expres- 
sions, though  their  author  quickly  changed  his  tune 
when  the  staging  of  *  The  Robbers  '  became  a  practical 
question.  In  the  heat  of  authorship,  however,  he  had 
aimed  at  a  literary  rather  than  a  dramatic  triumph. 
His  chief  models  were  literary  drarr^as.  *  Gotz  yon. 
Berlichingen  '  had  won  its  way  into  favor  as  a  book  for 
the  reader.  The  dramatic  works  of  Klinger,  Lenz,^ 
Wagner  and  the  like,  were  for  the  rnbst  part  too 
extravagant  and  amorphous  for  representation,  and 
Shakspere's  day  had  not  yet  come. 

This  being  so,  it  is  a  fact  of  interest  that  *  The  Rob- 
bers '  first  captured  the  public  as  a  stage-play,  and  that 
too  in  a  very  much  modified  version,  from  which  all 
references  to  contemporary  society  had  been  expunged, 
the  action  having  been  dated  back  into  the  fifteenth 
century.  This  indicates  that  the  initial  success  of  the 
work  was  not  due  mainly  to  the  social  *  tendency  '  which 
we  see  in  it,  but  to  its  dramatic  power.  And  the 
dramatic  power  is  there.    With  but  slender  knowledge 

*  Cf.  Bulthaupt,  "Dramaturgic  des  Schauspiels, "  I,  209,  who  has 
some  excellent  remarks  upon  the  dramatic  qualities  of  the  play  and  the 
histrionic  problems  connected  with  it. 


Dramatic  Power  of  The  Robbers         53 

of  the  rules  and  the  conventions,  without  ever  having 
seen  a  moderately  good  play  in  his  life,  with  little  help 
save  from  the  poet's  eye  in  a  fine  frenzy  rolling,  the 
young  student  had  shown  himself  at  a  stroke  the 
coming  dramatist  of  his  nation. 

Let  us  freely  admit  that  he  had  not  shown  himself  a 
master  of  dramatic  craftsmanship.  Faulty  the  piece 
no  doubt  is  in  several  particulars.  The  soliloquies  of 
Franz_are  too  long-winded,  and  the  same  may  be  said 
of  some  of  the  robber-scenes.  Spiegejberg's  vulgar 
tongue  is  allowed  to  wag  too  freely.  Contempt  of 
g[uotidian  probability  is  now  and  then  carried  so  far  as  JC 
to  produce  an  unintended,  efifect  of  burlesque :  as  when 
the  robbers,  who  are  merely  dissolute  students  from 
Leipzig,  fight  with  twenty  times  their  number  of  soldiers, 
lose  one  man  and  slay  three  hundred.  Again,  one  does 
not  quite  see  the  moral  necessity  of  honest. Schweizer's 
kijliftg  himself,  when  he  has  the  misfortune  to  fi] 
Franz  dead.  He  has  indeed  promised  to  capture  him  I 
or  die  in  the  attempt,  but  his  promise  was  never  meant  j 
to  cover  the  case  of  the  villain's  suicide.  Under  the 
circumstances  his  shooting  himself  is  mere  exuberance 
of  dramatic  bloodshed. 

But  how  absurd  it  would  be  to  dwell  upon  these 
things  as  if  they  were  serious  defects !  Young  Schiller 
undertook  to  Shaksperize.  His  parole  was  not  to  be 
the  natural  and  the  probable,  but  the  extraordinary,  the 
tremendous.  Why  then  should  he  have  been  more 
timid  than  the  author  of  '  Lear  '  and  *  Macbeth  '  .? 
One  who  is  borne  along  by  a  whirlwind  may  be  par- 
doned for  ignoring  the  rules  and  the  proprieties.  Of 
course  it  is  not  intended  to  compare  *  The  Robbers  * 


O  6  « 


54  The  Robbers 

with  the  riper  works  of  Shakspere.  That  would  be 
absurd,  and  yet  no  more  absurd  than  to  gird  at  Schiller 
for  doing  what  we  pardon  or  even  admire  in  Shakspere. 
Like  every  great  dramatist  Schiller  has  an  indefeasible 
right  to  demand  that  we  take  his  point  of  view,  make 
his  assumptions  and  enter  into  the  spirit  of  his  creation. 
And  when  we  do  this,  how  magnificently  he  carries  us 
along!  What  animation  in  the  dialogue  everywhere, 
and  what  fire  in  the  robber-scenes !  From  first  to  last 
the  play  fairly  throbs  with  passion,  and  always  with 
passion  made  visible.  It  is  all  action,  all  meant  to  be 
done  and  seen.  Extravagant  it  is,  no  doubt;  but  while 
there  are  always  hundreds  of  critics  in  the  world  who 
can  see  that  and  say  it  more  or  less  cleverly,  there  is 
but  one  man  in  a  century  who  can  write  such  scenes. 


CHAPTER   III 
tTbe  Stuttgart  ^cDfcus 

So  gewisz  ich  sein  Werk  verstehe,  so  musz  er  starke  Dosen  in 
Emeticis  ebenso  lieben  als  in  ^stheticis,  und  ich  mochte  ihm 
lieber  zehen  Pferde  als  meine  Frau  zur  Kur  iibergeben. — Review 
of  '  The  Robbers  \  1782. 

The  career  that  opened  before  Schiller  on  his 
release  from  the  academy,  in  December,  1780,  turned 
out  a  wretched  mockery  of  his  hopes.  He  had,  or 
supposed  he  had,  the  right  to  expect  a  decent  position 
in  the  public  service  and  a  measure  of  liberty  befitting 
a  man  who  had  served  his  time  under  tutelage.  What 
his  august  master  saw  fit  to  mete  out  to  him,  however, 
was  neither  the  one  nor  the  other:  he  was  stationed 
at  Stuttgart  as  '  medicus  '  to  an  ill-famed  regiment 
consisting  largely  of  invalids.  His  pay  was  eighteen 
florins  a  month — say  seven  or  eight  dollars.  His 
duties  consisted  of  routine  visits  to  the  hospital  and 
daily  appearance  at  parade,  with  reports  upon  the  con- 
dition of  the  luckless  patients  whom  he  doctored 
savagely  with  drastic  medicines.  Withal  he  was 
required  to  wear  a  stiff,  ungainly  uniform  which  did 
not  carry  with  it  the  distinction  of  an  *  officer  *  and 
exposed  him  to  the  derision  of  his  friends.  A  humble 
petition  of  Captain  Schiller  that  his  son  be  permitted 

55 


$6  The  Stuttgart  Mcdicus 

to  wear  the  dress  of  a  civilian  and  extend  his  prac- 
tice among  the  people  of  the  city  met  with  a  curt 
refusal. 

Of  Schiller's  personal  appearance  at  about  this  time 
we  have  two  or  three  descriptions  by  friends  who  knew 
him  well.^  Putting  them  together  we  get  a  picture 
something  like  the  following:  He  was  about  five  feet 
and  nine  inches  in  height,  erect  of  bearing  and  knock- 
kneed.  He  had  reddish  hair,  a  broad  forehead,  and 
bushy  eyebrows  which  came  close  together  over  a 
long,  thin,  arched  nose.  He  was  near-sighted.  His 
eyes,  of  a  bluish-gray  color,  were  usually  inflamed,  but 
very  expressive  when  he  spoke  with  animation.  One 
friend  credits  him  with  an  'eagle's  glance*,  another 
with  an  uncanny,  demonic  expression.  He  had  a 
strong  chin,  a  prominent  under-lip,  and  sunken, 
freckled  cheeks.  Altogether  his  face  and  bearing  told 
of  immense  energy. — One  can  imagine  how  the  creator 
of  Karl  Moor  must  have  felt  in  his  new  situation.  The 
young  lion  had  escaped  from  one  cage  into  another 
that  was  even  worse. 

Nevertheless  the  new  life  did  not  altogether  preclude 
an  occasional  sip  from  the  cup  of  earthly  cheer.  The 
young  medicus  found  himself  within  easy  reach  of  a 
number  of  jovial  friends  whom  he  had  known  at  the 
academy.  With  one  of  these,  a  youth  named  Kappf, 
he  hired  a  room  of  a  certain  Frau  Vischer,  a  widow 
who  was  to  become  the  muse  of  his  high-keyed  songs 
to  Laura.  The  furniture  consisted  of  a  table  and  two 
benches.     In  one  corner  were  usually  to  be  seen  a  pile 

*  The  somewhat  conflicting  data  are  subjected  to  a  critical  scrutiny 
by  Weltrich,  I,  323  flf. 


Visits  at  Castle  Solitude  57 

of  potatoes  and  some  plates.  Here  the  friends  feasted 
upon  sausage  and  potato-salad  of  their  own  make,  a 
bottle  of  wine  being  added  if  the  host  happened  to  be 
in  funds.  Sometimes  there  were  convivial  card-parties 
at  a  local  inn,  where  more  than  enough  wine  was  drunk 
and  bills  were  run  up  that  still  remain  unpaid.  Tradi- 
tion tells  of  a  military  banquet  from  which  our  medicus 
had  to  be  assisted  home. 

A  nobler  pleasure  incident  to  the  new  life  was  the 
opportunity  of  frequent  visits  to  Castle  Solitude.  For 
eight  years  Schiller  had  been  cut  off  from  intercourse 
with  his  parents  and  sisters,  save  through  the  medium 
of  officially  inspected  letters.  Returning  now  at  last 
he  found  his  mother  in  frail  health,  but  his  father  still 
vigorous  and  active.  Sister  Christophine  had  grown 
into  a  strong  and  self-reliant  young  woman,  the  main- 
stay of  the  household.  She  took  an  interest  in  litera- 
ture, loved  her  brother  devotedly,  had  a  sister's 
boundless  faith  in  his  genius,  and  now  became  his 
confidante  and  amanuensis.  Another  sister,  Louise, 
had  reached  the  age  of  fourteen,  two  others  had  died, 
and  the  youngest  of  all,  Nanette,  was  now  three  years 
old.  It  was  a  happy,  sensible,  affectionate  family- 
circle,  in  which  the  long-lost  son  and  brother  found 
sweet  relief  from  the  misere  of  Stuttgart.  The  only 
cloud  in  the  sky  was  the  mother's  anxiety  for  the 
welfare  of  her  son's  soul,  with  the  resulting  necessity 
of  replying  somewhat  disingenuously  to  her  tender  in- 
quiries into  his  religious  condition.  To  his  parents  and 
sister  the  disgruntled  medicus  expressed  freely  his  dis- 
appointment at  the  provision  which  the  duke  had  made 
for  him.     A  hard  fate,  indeed,  to  have  studied  seven 


58  The  Stuttgart  Medicus 

years  for  the  privilege  of  starving  one's  mind  and  body- 
as  an  insignificant  army  doctor ! 

It  was  partly  the  hope  of  earning  money  that  led 
him  to  seek  a  publisher  for  *  The  Robbers  '.  Friend 
Petersen  was  exhorted  to  find  one,  if  possible,  and 
was  promised  whatever  he  could  get  for  the  piece  over 
and  above  fifty  florins.  But  Petersen  had  no  luck  and 
at  last  the  ambitious  author  decided,  as  the  author  of 
'  Gotz  '  had  done  before  him,  to  print  his  drama  at  his 
own  expense.  The  money  that  he  borrowed  for  the 
purpose,  on  the  security  of  a  friend,  involved  him  in 
debts  that  were  to  hang  over  him  for  years  and  cause 
him  endless  trouble. 

His  plan  once  formed  he  began  to  take  counsel  with 
friends  and  revise  his  manuscript  in  the  light  of  their 
criticisms.  Even  after  the  printing  had  begun,  the 
revision  continued.  Things  looked  differently  in  the 
cold  type  of  the  proof-sheet,  and  he  saw  that  he  had 
occasionally  gone  too  far  in  the  direction  of  coarseness 
and  extravagance.  Thus  the  original  draft  had  pro- 
vided that  Amalia  should  actually  be  sent  to  a  convent, 
and  that  the  furious  Karl  should  appear  with  his  robbers 
and  threaten  to  convert  the  nunnery  into  a  brothel 
unless  his  sweetheart  should  be  delivered  to  him. 
This  scene  was  condemned  and  the  exploit  given  a 
more  appropriate  place  among  the  res  gestae  of 
Spiegelberg.  In  many  places  extravagant  diction  was 
toned  down.  The  original  preface,  which  was  mainly 
occupied  with  a  labored  defence  of  the  literary  drama 
as  against  the  stage-play,  was  rejected,  and  a  new 
preface  written  which  was  devoted  chiefly  to  moral 
considerations.     The  author  here  admitted  that  he  had 


Publication  of  The  Robbers  59 

portrayed  characters  who  would  offend  the  virtuous, 
but  insisted  that  he  could  not  do  otherwise  if  he  was  to 
copy  nature,  because  in  the  real  world  virtue  shines 
only  in  contrast  with  vice.      He  went  on  to  say: 

He  who  makes  it  his  object  to  overthrow  vice,  and  to  avenge 
religion,  morality  and  social  law  upon  their  enemies,  must 
unveil  vice  in  all  its  naked  hideousness  and  bring  it  before  the 
eyes  of  mankind  in  colossal  size  ;  he  must  himself  wander  tem- 
porarily through  its  nocturnal  labyrinths  and  must  be  able  to  force 
himself  into  states  of  feeling  that  revolt  his  soul  by  their  unnatu- 
ralness.  I  may  properly  claim  for  my  work,  in  view  of  its  remark- 
able catastrophe,  a  place  among  moral  books.  Vice  meets  the 
end  that  befits  it.  The  wanderer  returns  to  the  track  of  law. 
Virtue  triumphs.  Whoever  is  fair  enough  to  read  me  through 
and  try  to  understand  me,  from  him  I  may  expect,  not  that  he 
admire  the  poet,  but  that  he  respect  the  right-minded  man. 

This  attempt  to  recommend  *  The  Robbers  '  as  a 
text-book  in  morality  has  now  a  curious  sound.  It  is 
a  safe  guess  that  the  young  attorney  for  the  defence 
wrote  with  his  tongue  in  his  cheek  and  an  eye  on  the 
censor. 

The  first  edition,  which  appeared  in  May,  178 1,  was 
styled  a  *  Schauspiel '  and  bore  the  Hippocratic  motto : 
Quae  medicamenta  non  sanant,  ferrum  sanat;  quae 
ferrum  non  sanat,  ignis  sanat.  The  author's  name 
was  not  given  and  the  work  purported  (fallaciously)  to 
have  been  published  at  Frankfurt  and  Leipzig.  The 
anonymity  was  not  taken  seriously,  however,  and  the 
Stuttgart  medicus  soon  found  himself  a  bit  of  a  literary 
lion.  He  was  pointed  out  on  the  street  as  the  man 
who  had  written  'The  Robbers',  and  distinguished 
travellers  began  to  call  upon  him.  The  reviewers 
mingled  praise  and  blame,  and  the  most  thoughtful  of 


6o  The  Stuttgart  Mcdicus 

them,  one  Timme,  declared  in  the  Erfurt  Zeitung  that 
here  if  anywhere  was  the  coming  Shakspere, — which 
was  a  Httle  wild  from  posterity's  point  of  view,  but  not 
an  unpleasant  thing  for  a  young  author  to  read  in  a 
newspaper. 

Luckily  for  Schiller  his  work  was  not  long  left  to 
make  its  way  as  '  mere  literature  '.  Among  those  to 
whom  he  had  sent  the  sheets  was  a  Mannheim  book- 
seller, named  Schwan,  who  had  an  eye  for  dramatic 
merit.  Before  Schwan  had  read  many  pages  it  came 
over  him  that  here  was  a  prize  for  the  stage,  and  he 
hurried  with  it  to  Baron  Dalberg,  intendant  of  the 
Mannheim  theater.  Dalberg  was  easily  convinced, — 
only  the  work  would  need  to  be  radically  revised.  A 
complimentary  letter  was  addressed  to  Schiller,  pro- 
posing a  stage  version  of  *  The  Robbers  '  and  offering 
to  bring  out  future  plays  that  he  might  write.  Schiller 
was  quite  willing,  notwithstanding  his  preface,  and 
about  the  middle  of  August  he  addressed  himself  to  his 
task.  Profiting  by  the  suggestions  of  Dalberg  and  the 
reviewers,  he  devoted  six  weeks  to  adding,  subtracting, 
re-writing,  and  re-arranging, — a  new  masterpiece,  he 
averred,  would  have  cost  him  less  labor.  But  Dalberg 
was  not  yet  satisfied;  correspondence  ensued  about 
various  points,  Schiller  showing  himself  very  tractable, 
and  it  was  not  until  the  close  of  the  year  that  the  stage 
version  was  finally  ready.  It  was  played  on  the  1 2th 
of  January,  1782, — its  author  having  stolen  away  from 
Stuttgart  to  see  the  performance, — and  scored  an 
unheard-of  success.*     Shortly  afterwards  the  new  ver- 

*  Bulthaupt,  I.  210,  quotes  from  Pichler's  history  of  the   MannheixQ 
theater  the  following  account  by  an  eye-witness :  •  The  theater  was  like  a 


Stage  Version  of  The  Robbers  6i 

sion,  in  slightly  modified  form,  was  published  by 
Schwan  under  the  name  of  a  *  Trauerspiel '  by  Friedrich 
Schiller. 

The  changes  made  in  the  new  version  do  not  reflect 
the  free  play  of  Schiller's  dramatic  instinct  so  much 
as  his  deferential  attitude  towards  Dalberg.  Thus  we 
know  that  the  most  important  of  them  all,  the  shifting 
of  the  action  back  into  the  age  of  expiring  feudalism, 
was  made  reluctantly.  Schiller  felt,  and  had  reason  to 
feel,  that  the  modernity  of  his  drama  was  its  very  life- 
blood  ;  ^  for  the  squeamish  Dalberg,  however,  the 
robbers  in  the  age  of  Frederick  the  Great  were  a  pain- 
ful anachronism.  So  they  were  put  back  three  cen- 
turies and  costumed  in  the  style  of  the  *  Ritterstuck  '. 
Other  less  dubious  changes  were  also  made.  Thus  the 
long  soliloquies  of  Franz  and  the  ribald  garrulities  of 
Spiegelberg  were  reduced  to  more  tolerable  propor- 
tions. Robber  Schwarz  and  Pastor  Moser  were  omitted, 
and  the  bastard  Hermann  was  vitalized  into  a  person 
of  some  account  by  means  of  his  counter-plot  against 
Franz.     The  un-lyrical  songs  by  which  Schiller  had 

mad-house, — rolling  eyes,  clenched  fists,  stamping  feet  and  hoarse 
shrieks  from  the  spectators.  Strangers  fell  sobbing  into  each  other's 
arms,  and  women  staggered  to  the  door  at  the  point  of  fainting.  There 
was  a  general  dissolution,  as  in  chaos,  from  the  mists  of  which  a  new 
creation  bursts  forth.'  This  description  is  perhaps  the  best  possible 
antidote  to  Matthew  Arnold's  fastidious  observation  that  *  The  Robbers ' 
is  violent  and  tiresome. 

1  In  a  letter  of  Dec.  12,  178 1,  to  Dalberg,  he  admits  the  cogency  of 
the  objection  to  his  horde  of  robbers  '  in  our  enlightened  century '  and 
virtually  expresses  regret  that  he  had  not  himself,  from  the  beginning, 
imagined  an  earlier  date  for  the  action.  But  he  fears  that  to  change  the 
time,  now  that  the  piece  is  finished,  will  result  in  making  it  a  monstrosity, 
a  *  crow   with  peacock's  feathers '. 


62  The  Stuttgart  Medicus 

set  great  store  were  dropped,  and  the  catastrophe  was 
so  changed  as  to  bring  the  two  brothers  finally  face  to 
face.  The  life  of  Schweizer  was  spared  and  Franz, 
instead  of  being  torn  limb  from  limb,  was  derisively- 
pardoned  by  his  great-souled  brother  and  then,  amid 
mocking  laughter,  thrust  into  the  selfsame  dungeon 
in  which  he  had  confined  his  father.  Much  against 
Schiller's  will  Amalia  was  made  to  kill  herself  with  a 
dagger  snatched  from  one  of  the  outlaws,  instead  of 
receiving  her  death  at  the  hands  of  her  lover. 

The  prodigious  success  of  '  The  Robbers  '  upon  the 
Mannheim  stage,  and  upon  other  stages  where  it  was 
soon  produced  in  more  or  less  garbled  form,  made  the 
work  famous.  Famous  and  at  the  same  time  notorious. 
New  editions,  most  of  them  pirated,  began  to  appear, 
and  a  mania  similar  to  the  Werther-mania  of  the 
previous  decade  spread  over  Germany.  The  news- 
papers told  of  conspiring  schoolboys  whose  heads  had 
been  turned  toward  a  career  of  crime.  A  well-born 
youth  who  had  essayed  the  role  of  Robin  Hood  near 
Strassburg  and  was  hanged  there  in  October,  1783, 
confessed  suspiciously  that  he  had  been  brought  to  his 
fate  by  the  reading  of  bad  books.  The  sedate  authori- 
ties of  Leipzig  forbade  the  further  performance  of  the 
play  in  their  city  because  they  had  observed  a  sudden 
increase  of  burglary  and  petit  larceny.  An  edition  of 
1782,  which  the  publisher,  possibly  without  Schiller's 
knowledge,  had  adorned  with  a  rampant  lion  and  the 
motto  In  TirannoSy  probably  added  to  the  vogue  of 
the  piece  as  a  revolutionary  document.  A  French 
translation  appeared  in  1785  and  drew  the  attention  of 
the  turbulent  Gauls  to  that  *  Monsieur  Gille  ',  who  was 


Medicus  and  Poet  63 

in  time  to  receive  the  diploma  of  a  French  citizen. 
The  first  English  translation  dates  from  1792. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  the  emotions  with  which 
Schiller,  now  at  the  fervid  age  of  twenty-two,  returned 
to  his  post  after  that  intoxicating  visit  to  Mannheim, 
and,  his  ears  still  tingling  with  the  thunderous  plaudits 
of  the  theater  and  the  complimentary  babble  of  his  new 
friends,  resumed  the  dosing  of  his  sick  grenadiers  in 
Stuttgart.  For  a  while  things  went  on  very  much  as 
before.  In  order  to  better  his  position  in  a  professional 
way,  he  formed  the  plan  of  taking  his  doctor's  degree 
and  then  qualifying  for  a  professorship  in  physiology. 
But  from  the  first  the  poet  in  him  prevailed  more  and 
more  over  the  medical  man.  Soon  after  leaving  the 
academy  he  had  published  a  long  elegy  upon  the 
death  of  a  young  friend  named  Weckerlin.  It  is  a 
rebellious,  declamatory  poem,  in  which  the  pathos  of 
untimely  death  is  made  the  occasion  for  ventilating 
radical  views  as  to  the  goodness  of  God  and  the  con- 
solations of  religion.  Passages  like  the  following  show 
the  young  Schiller  at  his  best  as  a  poet: 

Liebe  wird  Dein  Auge  nie  vergolden, 

Nie  umhalsen  Deine  Braut  wirst  Du, 
Nie,  wenn  unsere  Thranen  stromweis  rollten, 

Ewig,  ewig,  ewig  sinkt  Dein  Auge  zu.^ 

For  the  rest,  the  death  of  Weckerlin  is  a  '  discord  on 
the  great  lute  ',  and  a  *  barbarous  doom  '.     And  yet, 

*  '*  Love  gilds  not  for  thee  all  the  world  with  its  glow. 

Never  Bride  in  the  clasp  of  thine  arms  shall  repose  ; 
Thou  canst  see  not  our  tears,  though  in  torrents  they  flow, 
Those  eyes  in  the  calm  of  eternity  close." — Bulwer's  Translation* 


64  The  Stuttgart  Mcdicus 

the  poem  continues,  the  dead  youth  has  drawn  the 
better  lot ;  he  will  sleep  calmly  in  his  narrow  house, 
unmindful  of  the  wretched  tragi-comedy  going  on 
above  his  head.  So  his  friends  are  bidden  *  to 
clap  their  hands  and  shout  a  loud  plaudite\  As 
for  a  reunion,  there  will  be  one,  but  it  will  not 
be  in  the  'paradise  of  the  rabble*. — In  another 
poem  dating  from  this  period,  *  The  Chariot  of  Venus, ' 
the  love-goddess  is  put  on  trial  and  castigated  for 
her  sins.  Her  havoc  among  the  sons  of  men  is 
described  in  half  a  hundred  rhetorical  stanzas  which 
were  evidently  inspired  by  the  genius  of  the  clinic 
or  the  hospital,  rather  than  by  one  of  the  sacred 
nine. 

Besides  these  poems  a  large  number  of  others  were 
written  by  Schiller  during  the  year  1781,  prior  to  the 
time  when  Dalberg's  invitation  caused  him  to  turn  his 
attention  to  the  stage.  It  was  of  course  important  to 
acquaint  the  public  with  his  lucubrations,  but  poetry 
in  large  quantities  was  not  an  easily  marketable  com- 
modity. The  usual  mode  of  publication  was  the  poetic 
'  almanac  '  or  *  calendar  ',  in  which  a  number  of  am- 
bitious verse-makers  would  unite  their  wares  in  a  single 
volume.  Of  such  almanacs  there  were  several  in 
Germany  and  one  at  least  in  Suabia.  It  was  edited  by 
one  Staudlin,  a  rival  whom  Schiller  thought  it  would 
be  both  feasible  and  pleasant  to  outshine.  So  he  sent 
out  letters  to  his  friends  inviting  contributions,  and  in 
due  time  there  appeared,  after  a  fresh  outlay  of  borrowed 
money,  an  *  Anthology  for  the  Year  1782  '.  It  con- 
sisted of  some  four-score  poems,  signed  with  all  manner 
of  intentionally  misleading  symbols  and  purporting  to 


The  Anthology  of  1782  65 

emanate  from  Tobolsko,  in  Siberia.  The  most  of  the 
verses  were  the  work  of  Schiller.^ 

Among  the  poems  of  the  '  Anthology  '  there  are 
none  that  have  become  very  popular,  none  that  are 
capable  of  affording  any  very  keen  delight  to  the  lover 
of  poetry.  One  sees  that  their  author's  lyric  gift  was 
not  of  the  highest  order.  What  is  heard  is  not  so 
much  the  note  of  honest  feeling  as  the  effort  of  an  active 
intellect,  searching  heaven  and  earth  for  clever  and 
striking  things  to  say.  Instead  of  learning  from  the 
folk-song,  Schiller  had  learned  originally  from  Klop- 
stock;  and  what  he  had  learned  was  to  pose  and 
philosophize  and  invest  fictitious  sentiment  with  a  maze 
of  bewildering  and  far-fetched  imagery.  Then  he  had 
lost  sympathy  with  Klopstock's  religiosity,  had  acquired 
a  better  opinion  of  the  things  of  sense,  and  had  had  his 
introduction  to  doubt  and  disgust  and  rebellion.  When 
now  these  moods  sought  expression  in  verse,  the  verse 
took  the  form  of  impassioned  rhetoric.  He  sang  not 
as  the  bird  sings,  but  as  a  fervid  youth  sings  who  is 
eager  to  assert  as  strongly  as  possible  his  emancipation 
from  conventional  modes  of  thought  and  feeling. 

The  poems  of  the  *  Anthology  '  are  too  numerous 
and  in  the  main  too  unimportant  for  an  exhaustive 
review;  it  must  suffice  to  glance  at  a  few  of  the  more 
noteworthy.  Several  had  been  written  at  the  academy 
and  were  now  published  with  more  or  less  of  retouch- 

'  As  different  poems  undoubtedly  Schiller's  were  variously  signed,  and 
as  many  of  his  youthful  effusions  were  excluded  by  him  from  the  collec- 
tion of  1801,  the  sifting  out  of  his  share  in  the  'Anthology'  and  the 
ascription  of  the  remaining  poems  to  their  proper  authors  are  tasks  of  no 
small  difficulty.     The  critical  student  should  consult  Weltrich,  I,  501  ff. 


(>(i  The  Stuttgart  Medicus 

ing.  To  this  number,  it  would  seem,  belongs  the  one 
entitled  '  The  Glory  of  Creation  ',  which  is  a  perfectly 
serious  and  devout  poem  on  the  grandeur  and  beauty 
of  the  world.  Along  with  this,  however,  we  find 
another,  entitled  *  To  God  ',  which  tells  of  moods  like 
those  which  had  led  Werther  to  characterize  Nature 
as  'an  eternally  ruminating  monster'.  It  consists  of 
five  unrimed  stanzas,  all  but  one  ending  with  an  em- 
phatic *  Thou  big  thing '. 

Thou  who  didst  summon  earth  and  sky. 

And  earth  and  sky  came  forth  ; 
Who  sayest  the  word  and  worlds  arise, 

Who  art  thou,  mighty  thing  ? 

0  big,  amazingly  big  thing  ! 
My  head  swims  when  I  look  ; 

1  shudder  and  start  back  afraid 

And  fall  —  upon  my  knees. 

These  verses — the  translation  may  hold  up  its  head 
quite  unabashed  beside  the  original — hardly  rise  above 
the  plane  of  doggerel ;  they  signify  nothing  except  that 
their  author  has  had  his  little  quarrel  with  this  best  of 
all  possible  worlds  and  is  not  unwilling  to  shock 
people. 

Of  far  greater  poetic  interest  are  the  verses  entitled 
'  Rousseau  ',  whose  neglected  grave  (he  died  in  1778) 
is  made  the  point  of  departure  for  a  vigorous  denuncia- 
tion of  the  bigotry  that  had  driven  him  from  place  to 
place  and  denied  him  peace  among  the  living.  The 
poem  foresees  a  time  when  streams  of  blood  shall  flow 
for  the  honor  of  calling  him  son.     There  is  no  effort 


Poem  on  Rousseau  67 

at  portraiture,  and  no  suggestion  of  any  repellent  or 
pitiable  traits.^  We  get  not  Byron's  **  self-torturing 
sophist",  but  a  martyred  sage  who  suffered  and  died 
at  the  hands  of  Christians, — *  he  who  makes  out  of 
Christians  human  beings  '.  Toward  the  end  he  is 
apostrophized  as  the  *  Great  Endurer  ' ,  and  bidden  to 
leap  joyously  into  Charon's  boat  and  go  tell  the  spirits 
about  this  *  dream  of  the  war  of  frogs  and  mice,  the 
hand-organ  doodle-doodle  of  this  life'.*^ 

In  this  poem  there  is  certainly  no  lack  of  that  *  fire  ' 
which  Duke  Karl  found  in  Schiller's  dissertation. 
Indeed  fire  abounds  everywhere  in  his  youthful  versify- 
ing. He  never  contemplates,  never  dwells  upon  a 
temperate  emotion.  The  poetry  of  common  things 
and  of  the  gentler  feelings  seems  to  have  been  non- 
existent for  him.  His  imagination  likes  to  occupy 
itself  with  the  supernal,  the  stupendous,  or  else  with 
the  awful  and  the  revolting.  This  is  seen  in  the  two 
poems  '  Elysium  '  and  *  A  Group  from  Tartarus  ' ;  the 
one  aiming  to  portray  a  land  of  ineffable  happiness, 
where  sorrow  has  no  name  and  the  only  pain  is  a 
gentle  ecstasy,  the  other  depicting  the  infinite  misery 
of  the  inferno.     In  both  there  is  a  free  blending  of 

1  Schiller  seems  to  have  got  his  idea  of  Rousseau  chiefly  from  H.  P. 
Sturz's  "  DenkwUrdigkeiten  von  Johami  Jakob  Rousseau  "  (1779).  The 
famous  '  Confessions '  did  not  begin  to  appear  until  1781.  Curiously 
enough  our  poem  refers  to  Rousseau  as  *  suckled  on  the  banks  of  the 
Seine  ',  and  as  having  '  stood  like  a  meteor  on  the  banks  of  the  Garonne'. 
2  Geh,  du  Opfer  dieses  Trillingsdrachen, 
Hupfe  freudig  in  den  Todesnachen, 

Grosser  Dulder,  frank  und  frei ! 
Geh,  erzahl'  dort  in  der  Geister  Kreise 
Diesen  Traum  vom  Krieg  der  FrOsch'  und  Mause, 
Dieses  Lebens  Jahrmarktsdudelei. 


68  The  Stuttgart  Medicus 

Christian  with  pagan  conceptions,  *  Elysium  *  being- 
put  for  heaven  and  *  Tartarus  '  for  hell.  A  similar 
blending  is  noticeable  in  many  of  the  other  poems,  an- 
cient mythology  being  made  to  furnish  forth  the  setting 
and  the  symbols  of  modern  passion.  So  it  is,  for  ex- 
ample, in  the  lyric  operetta  '  Semele  ',  the  longest  and 
most  pretentious  of  the  *  Anthology  *  poems.  It  con- 
sists of  two  scenes  in  irregular  verses,  dealing  with 
Jupiter's  love  for  the  mortal  Semele  and  Juno's 
jealousy.  Artistically  it  is  much  in  need  of  the  file,  and 
its  sustained  note  of  passionate  pathos  hardly  comports, 
perhaps,  with  the  type  of  the  operetta.  Nevertheless 
it  contains  powerful  passages  and  telling  stage  effects. 
One  can  see  that  the  young  student — '  Semele  '  appears 
to  have  been  written  at  the  academy — had  learned, 
through  his  occasional  visits  to  the  opera,  how  to 
manage  a  conventional  theme  and  conventional  ma- 
chinery in  such  a  way  as  to  startle  and  thrill. 

More  noteworthy,  for  the  characterization  of  the 
youthful  Schiller,  is  the  ode  entitled  *  Friendship ' , 
which  purports  to  be  taken  '  from  the  letters  of  Julius 
to  Raphael,  an  unpublished  novel '.  In  this  poem  we 
have  not  so  much  the  expression  of  a  real  human  affec- 
tion as  a  philosophy  of  friendship ;  just  as  in  the  Laura 
poems  we  have  a  philosophy  of  love.  The  verses 
remind  one  immediately  of  Rousseau's  saying  that 
he  was  *  intoxicated  with  love  without  an  object'. 
Friendship  is  described  as  a  mystic  attraction  of  souls, 
identical  with  the  attraction  of  gravitation.  This  it  is 
which  makes  the  beauty  and  the  glory  of  the  spiritual 
world.  *  We  are  dead  groups  when  we  hate,  gods 
when  we  love. ' 


Poem  on  Friendship  69 

If  in  creation's  All  I  stood  alone, 
Souls  would  I  dream  into  the  senseless  stone 
And  kiss  them  in  a  fond  embrace. 

Then  we  hear  of  a  hierarchy  of  spirits,  ascending  *  from 
the  Mongol  to  the  Greek  seer,  who  precedes  the  last 
of  the  seraphs  * ;  and  in  this  harmonious  ring-dance 
of  souls  Raphael  and  Julius  *  sweep  onward  to  where 
time  and  space  are  submerged  in  the  sea  of  eternal 
glory'. 

Other  poems  which  rise  above  the  general  level  are 
*  The  Bad  Monarchs  ' ,  a  poetic  castigation  (without 
mention  of  names)  of  the  type  of  ruler  perfectly  ex- 
emplified by  Duke  Karl  of  Wiirttemberg,  up  to  about 
the  year  1770;  'In  a  Battle',  a  powerful  description 
of  the  rage  of  combat,  with  all  its  sickening  and  inspir- 
ing details;  'The  Pestilence*,  a  gruesome  tribute  to 
the  power  of  God  as  manifested  in  the  horrors  of  the 
plague,  and  '  Count  Eberhard  the  Quarreler ',  a 
patriotic  battle-ballad  in  honor  of  a  locally  renowned 
Suabian  fighter.  Better  than  any  of  these,  however, 
from  a  poetic  point  of  view,  is  the  '  Funeral  Fantasy  ', 
which  was  occasioned  by  the  death  of  young  Von 
Hoven  in  1780.  One  may  perhaps  doubt  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  grief  that  could  find  expression  in  such  a 
pomp  of  words,  but  there  is  no  doubting  the  poetic 
power  of  pictures  like  this : 

Pale,  at  its  ghastly  noon, 

Pauses  above  the  death-still  wood  the  moon  ; 

The  night-sprite  sighing,  through  the  dim  air  stirs  ; 
The  clouds  descend  in  rain  ; 
Mourning,  the  wan  stars  wane, 
Flickering  like  dying  lamps  in  sepulchres  ! 


70  The  Stuttgart  Medicus 

Haggard  as  spectres,  vision-like  and  dumb, 

Dark  with  the  pomp  of  Death,  and  moving   slow, 

Towards  that  sad  lair  the  pale  Procession  come 
Where  the  Grave  closes  on  the  Night  below.* 

But  the  most  famous  and  on  the  whole  the  most 
interesting  of  the  effusions  in  the  *  Anthology  '  are  the 
erotic  verses  addressed  to  Laura.  Whether  Schiller 
was  humanly  in  love  with  his  landlady,  Frau  Luise 
Vischer,  is  a  rather  futile  question  which  German  erudi- 
tion has  argued  pro  and  con  these  many  years  without 
coming  to  an  inexpugnable  conclusion.  Probably 
he  was  not,  though  he  may  have  thought  that  he  was. 
If  he  had  been  we  should  have  heard  of  it  sooner  or 
later  in  authentic  prose.  But  she  interested  him  as  the 
first  of  her  sex  who  had  come  under  his  close  observa- 
tion. There  were  on  his  part  the  small  gallantries  of 
daily  life,  and  on  hers  the  responsiveness  of  a  not  very 
prudish  widow  quite  willing  to  be  adored.  She  played 
the  piano.  It  was  enough:  the  needy  Petrarch  had 
found  a  sufficient  Laura — and  never  was  a  poet's 
goddess  worshiped  in  such  singular  strains.  We  miss 
in  them  altogether  that  captivating  simplicity  which 
the  young  Goethe,  and  later  the  young  Heine,  caught 
from  the  songs  of  the  people.  Schiller  is  always  in 
pursuit  of  the  intense,  the  extraordinary,  the  ecstatic, 
and  sometimes  fails  to  impress  through  sheer  super- 
abundance of  the  impressive.  His  imagination  wanders 
between  a  wild  sensuality, — so  lubricious  in  its  sugges- 
tions, now  and  then,  as  to  occasion  gossip  to  the  effect 
that  he  had  become  a  libertine, — and  a  sublimated  phi- 

*  Bulwer's  translation,  which  is  here  particularly  good. 


Songs  to  Laura  71 

losophy  based  on  Platonic  conceptions  of  a  prenatal 
existence,  or  upon  Leibnitzian  conceptions  of  a  pre- 
established  harmony.  But  while  the  Laura  poems  are 
sufficiently  sensual,  they  are  not  sensuous;  or  if  they 
try  to  be,  the  sensuous  element  is  unreal  and  un- 
imaginable. Some  of  them,  with  their  overstrained 
vehemence  of  expression,  their  fervid  and  far-fetched 
tropes,  their  involved  and  sometimes  obscure  diction, 
are  little  more  than  intellectual  puzzles :  they  so  occupy 
the  mind  in  the  mere  effort  of  comprehension  that  little 
room  is  left  for  any  emotion  whatever.  They  leave 
one  altogether  cold. 

A  '  Fantasie  to  Laura '  identifies  the  rapturous 
passion  with  the  force  of  gravitation  which  holds 
planets  and  systems  in  order.  '  Blot  it  out  from  the 
mechanism  of  nature  and  the  All  bursts  asunder  in 
fragments;  your  worlds  thunder  into  chaos;  weep, 
Newtons,  for  their  giant  fall!'  And  then  Laura's 
kiss! 

Aus  den  Schranken  schwellen  alle  Sehnen, 
Seine  Ufer  iiberwallt  das  Blut ; 

KSrper  will  in  Korper  iibersturzen, 
Lodern  Seelen  in  vereinter  Glut.* 

When  Laura  plays  the  piano,  her  adorer  stands 
there,  one  moment  an  exanimate  statue,  the  next  a 
disembodied  spirit, — while  the  listening  zephyrs  murmur 
more  softly  in  reverence.     In  a  *  Reproach  to  Laura  * 

*  "  Out  from  their  bounds  swell  nerve,  and  pulse,  and  sense, 
The  veins  in  tumult  would  their  shores  o'erflow  ; 
Body  to  body  rapt — and,  charmed  thence, 
Soul  drawn  to  soul  with  intermingled  glow." 

— Bulwer's  Translation. 


7«  The  Stuttgart  Mcdicus 

she  is  taxed  with  being  the  ruin  of  her  lover's  ambition. 
Because  of  her  the  'giant  has  shriveled  to  a  dwarf. 
She  has  'blown  away  the  mountains',  that  he  had 
*  rolled  up  '  to  the  sunny  heights  of  glory.  In  another 
poem,  *  Mystery  of  Reminiscence ',  we  hear  of  a 
cosmic  golden  age  in  which  Laura,  one  with  her  poet, 
was  a  part  of  the  Godhead.  One  and  yet  two,  they 
swept  through  space  in  unimaginable  ecstasy.  Some- 
how,— the  point  is  not  made  very  clear, — there  came 
a  great  cataclysm  and  separated  them.  Now  they  are 
beautiful  fragments  of  the  God,  evermore  yearning  to 
restore  the  lost  unity: 

Darum  Laura  dieses  Wutverlangen, 
Ewig  Starr  an  deinen  Mund  zu  hangen, 
Und  die  Wollust  deinen  Hauch  zu  trinken, 
In  dein  Wesen,  wenn  sich  Blicke  winken, 
Sterbend  zu  versinken.^ 

Without  lingering  longer  over  the  erotic  poems  of 
the  *  Anthology  ',  one  may  say  that  they  are  charac- 
terized, like  'The  Robbers',  by  a  fiery  intensity  of 
expression  which,  in  the  search  after  the  sublime, 
occasionally  passes  the  bounds  of  good  taste.  Their 
author  already  has  at  his  command  a  gorgeous  poetic 
diction  that  is  all  his  own.  One  is  often  amazed  at 
his  mere  command  of  words,  the  audacity  of  his  tropes, 
the  sweep  of  his  imagination.  But  he  does  not  con- 
vince. When  at  his  best  he  only  produces  an  impres- 
sion of  magnificent  feigning.     The  reader  soon   sees 

1  "  And  therefore  came  to  me  the  wish  to  woo  thee — 
Still,  lip  to  lip,  to  cling  for  aye  unto  thee; 
This  made  thy  glances  to  my  soul  the  link — 
This  made  me  burn  thy  very  breath  to  drink — 

My  life  in  thine  to  sink."        — Buiwer's  Translation, 


Poetic  Promise  of  the  Anthology  73 

that,  notwithstanding  all  the  impassioned  hyperboles, 
it  is  really  intellectual  poetry, — a  youth  philosophizing 
about  his  passion.  And  the  philosophy  is  little  more 
than  a  matter  of  fine-sounding  but  vacuous  analogies 
that  have  no  root  in  the  facts  of  experience.^  And  so 
the  poetry  does  not  take  hold  of  one.  Nor  does  it 
charm  with  its  music ;  there  is  vigor  and  sweep  and 
swing,  but  the  subtler  elements  of  melodious  verse  are 
lacking. 

These  qualities  of  the  youthful  Schiller's  poetry 
foretell  that  he  will  never  be  a  great  lyrist,  but  they 
promise  well  enough  for  the  poetic  tale.  This  promise 
is  seen  notably  in  the  poem  called  *  The  Infanticide  '. 
It  is  a  gruesome  thing,  with  the  pathos  here  and  there 
overstrained,  but  what  a  power  of  vivid  narration! 
What  a  gift  for  the  portraiture  of  frenzied  passion! 
For  the  rest,  it  should  not  go  unrecorded  that  certain 
poems  of  the  *  Anthology  '  went  altogether  too  far  in 
the  defiance  of  conventional  morality.  The  study  of 
medicine,  combined  with  the  ardor  of  youthful  revolt 
and  the  seductions  of  a  new  bohemian  life,  had  so 
sensualized  the  mind  of  Schiller  that,  for  a  brief  period 
in  his  career,  he  found  pleasure  in  exploiting  the  in- 
decent. It  was  but  a  passing  phase,  and  not  very  bad 
at  its  worst.  Still,  if  Heine,  and  the  other  emanci- 
pators of  the  flesh  who  came  later,  had  felt  the  need  of 
supporting  their  cause  by  an  appeal  to  distinguished 
authority,  they  might  have  referred  quite  unabashed 
to  the  youthful  sins  of  the  idealist  Schiller. 

1  Concerning  the  provenience  and  the  philosophic  connection  of  the 
youthful  Schiller's  ideas  of  love  and  friendship  the  reader  will  do  well 
to  consult  Kuno  Fischer,  "  Schiller- Schriften  ",  I,  41  ff. 


74  The  Stuttgart  Medicus 

Little  notice  was  taken  of  the  *  Anthology  *  even  in 
Suabia,  and  none  at  all,  apparently,  in  the  outside 
German  world.  The  investment  brought  no  immediate 
returns  in  fame  or  in  money,  and  other  experiments  of 
a  different  character  turned  out  but  little  better. 

As  early  as  the  spring  of  178 1  Schiller  had  assumed 
the  editorial  charge  of  a  would-be  popular  magazine 
intended  to  contribute  to  the  *  benefit  and  pleasure  '  of 
the  Suabians.  It  was  a  weak  provincial  affair  that 
soon  died  of  inanition.  The  hack-work  that  Schiller 
did  for  it  is  of  no  biographical  interest,  save  that  it 
brought  him  into  connection  with  Suabian  writers  and 
suggested  to  him  that  with  a  freer  hand  he  might  pro- 
duce a  better  journal.  In  the  following  year,  accord- 
ingly, we  find  him  starting,  in  conjunction  with  his 
friends  Abel  and  Petersen,  the  Wirtemberg  Repertoiy 
of  Literature.  It  was  to  be  a  quarterly,  and  bore  the 
ominous  legend:  *  at  the  expense  of  the  editors  '.  To 
this  journal  Schiller  contributed  various  essays  and 
reviews  which  show  that  as  a  critic  he  had  been 
influenced  by  Lessing,  but  had  not  acquired  the  knack 
of  Lessing's  luminous  and  straightforward  style.  In  a 
rather  badly  written  paper  on  *  The  Present  Condition 
of  the  German  Theater  ',  he  takes  up  a  question  which 
was  destined  to  interest  him  later, — that  of  the  relation 
of  the  drama  to  morality.  He  has  no  difficulty  in 
showing  that  people  are  not  deterred  from  the  vices  or 
impelled  to  the  virtues  that  they  see  represented  on 
the  stage. 

But  by  far  the  most  important  of  these  contributions 
to  the  Repertory  are  two  reviews  (of  course  anonymous) 
of  his  own  writings.     In  a  long  notice  of  *  The  Robbers  * 


Schiller  as  a  Critic  of  Himself  75 

he  discusses  the  work  with  a  coolness  that  is  simply 
amazing.  His  own  child  has  become  a  corpus  vile  that 
he  has  the  nerve  to  dissect  without  the  slightest  tremor 
of  parental  sympathy.  Nearly  everything  that  a  cen- 
tury's criticism  has  found  to  urge  against  the  play, — 
the  dubiousness  of  the  entire  invention,  the  impossi- 
bility of  such  a  devil  as  Franz,  the  insipidity  of  Amalia 
and  the  old  Count  Moor,  the  faults  of  the  diction  and 
the  barbarism  of  the  action, — is  here  set  forth  with 
remorseless  severity.  The  review  closes  with  the 
facetious  comment  which  appears  at  the  head  of  this 
chapter.  Not  quite  so  caustic  is  the  notice  of  the 
*  Anthology  ',  but  it  contains  a  significant  '  admonition 
to  our  young  poets  '  to  the  effect  that  *  extravagance 
is  not  strength,  that  violation  of  the  rules  of  taste  and 
propriety  is  not  boldness  and  originality,  that  fancy  is 
not  feeling,  and  high-flown  rhetoric  is  not  the  talisman 
on  which  the  arrows  of  criticism  break  and  recoil  '. 

Verily  it  is  not  given  every  young  author  to  see 
himself  thus  clearly  in  the  glass  of  criticism.  We  may 
guess,  however,  that  these  critical  mystifications  were 
not  altogether  free  from  the  element  of  calculating 
humbug.  Schiller  knew  full  well  that  to  be  castigated 
in  public  would  not  be  a  bad  thing  for  his  budding 
reputation;  and  so,  as  no  one  else  came  forward  to  do 
the  slashing,  he  did  it  himself.  It  is  amusing  to  read 
that  a  Frankfurt  correspondent  was  so  pained  by  the 
review  of  '  The  Robbers  '  that  he  sent  in  a  defence  of 
the  piece  and  was  greatly  surprised  to  learn  that 
reviewer  and  author  were  one  and  the  same  person. 

These  contributions  to  the  Repertory  appeared  in  the 
first  two  numbers ;  before  the  third  came  out  Schiller 


76  The  Stuttgart  Medxcus 

had  turned  his  back  for  good  and  all  upon  his  native 
Wiirttemberg.  Ever  since  that  first  visit  to  Mannheim 
he  had  felt  drawn  to  the  *  Greek  climate  of  the  Palati- 
nate'. On  the  1st  of  April,  1782,  we  find  him  writing 
to  Dalberg  that  it  '  would  be  untrue  were  he  to  deny 
his  growing  inclination  for  the  drama'.  The  letter 
goes  on  to  say  that  he  was  then  expecting  to  be  very 
much  occupied,  for  several  months,  with  medical 
studies;  but  he  hoped  to  finish  a  new  play,  *  Fiesco  ', 
by  the  end  of  the  year.  Toward  the  end  of  May, 
taking  advantage  of  the  absence  of  the  duke,  he  visited 
Mannheim  again  and  saw  a  second  representation  of 
*  The  Robbers  '.  Through  the  indiscreet  gossip  of  the 
friends  who  accompanied  him,  the  duke  got  wind  of 
this  unauthorized  journey,  ordered  *  the  deserter  *  under 
arrest  for  two  weeks,  and  forbade  him  all  further  inter- 
course with   foreign   parts. 

Schiller  made  use  of  his  enforced  leisure  to  work 
upon  'Fiesco',  and  to  plan  a  third  drama,  *  Louise 
Miller  ',  which  promised  a  chance  of  revenge  upon 
the  petty  tyrant  who  sought  to  own  him  body  and 
soul.  After  serving  his  time  in  the  guard-house  he 
wrote  an  urgent  appeal  to  Dalberg,  to  rescue  him 
from  his  intolerable  situation  by  giving  him  employ- 
ment at  Mannheim.  But  Dalberg,  a  fearsome  and 
politic  creature,  had  no  mind  to  compromise  himself 
by  befriending  a  youth  who  had  quarreled  with  the 
powerful  duke  of  Wiirttemberg.  Schiller  now  began 
to  think  of  running  away,  and  his  thoughts  were  soon 
quickened  into  resolution  by  fresh  exasperations. 

In  the  second  act  of  *  The  Robbers  '  he  had  made 
Spiegelberg  refer  to  the  Swiss  canton  of  the  Grisons  as 


Quarrel  with  the  Duke  of  Wiirttemberg     77 

the  *  Athens  of  modern  scalawags. '  Tradition  has  it 
that  the  passage  was  a  thrust  at  an  unpopular  Swiss 
overseer  in  the  academy.  It  is  probable,  however, 
that  it  was  in  no  way  malicious,  but  merely  a  thought- 
less jest  at  the  expense  of  a  canton  which  had  actually 
got  a  bad  reputation  for  lax  enforcement  of  the  law. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  the  passage  gave  offence  to  a 
patriotic  Swiss  named  Amstein,  who  aired  his  grievance 
in  print  and  demanded  a  retraction.  When  Schiller 
paid  no  attention  to  this,  Amstein  appealed  to  one 
Walter,  a  fussy  official  living  at  Ludwigsburg.  Walter 
took  up  the  case  of  the  traduced  canton  with  great  zeal, 
and  brought  it  to  the  attention  of  the  duke.  The  result 
was  a  summons  to  Schiller,  a  sharp  reproof,  and  an 
order  to  write  no  more  *  comedies  '.  He  was  to  confine 
himself  strictly  to  medicine  or  he  would  be  cashiered. 
Matters  now  came  swiftly  to  a  head.  On  Sep- 
tember I,  1782,  Schiller  addressed  to  his  sovereign  a 
very  humble  letter  of  remonstrance,  setting  forth  that 
his  authorship  had  added  more  than  five  hundred  florins 
to  his  income,^  and  that  this  money  was  absolutely 
necessary  for  the  prosecution  of  his  studies;  that  he 
was  winning  reputation  and  thus  bringing  honor  to  the 
academy  and  to  its  illustrious  founder,  and  so  forth. 
The  duke's  reply  was  to  threaten  him  with  arrest  in 
case  he  should  write  any  more  letters  upon  this  subject. 
Schiller  now  resolved  to  take  his  fate  in  his  own  hands. 
Resistance  and  submission  to  the  autocrat  were  alike 
out  of  the  question ;  the  only  recourse  was  flight  from 
Wiirttemberg. 

^  Of  course  this  roseate  statement  to  his  Highness  took  no  account  of 
his  debts,  which  had  not  yet  begun  to  be  particularly  pressing. 


78  The  Stuttgart  Mcdicus 

In  the  days  of  German  absolutism,  this  was  a  dan- 
gerous step  to  take.  Technically  he  would  be  a 
deserter.  He  had  reason  to  fear  that  he  would  not  be 
allowed  to  make  his  way  in  the  world  by  his  own 
merit,  unharmed  and  unhelped,  but  would  be  dogged 
by  the  malice  of  a  despot  and  perhaps  brought  back  to 
undergo  the  fate  of  Schubart.  Worse  still  was  the 
possibility  that  his  father  might  be  made  to  suffer  from 
the  duke's  anger.  Nevertheless  he  resolved  to  take 
the  risk.  He  made  known  his  purpose  to  a  very  few 
friends,  one  of  whom,  Frau  von  Wolzogen,  offered  him 
her  house  in  Bauerbach,  in  the  event  of  his  sometime 
needing  a  quiet  refuge.  Another  friend,  Andreas 
Streicher,  nobly  offered  to  share  his  fortunes.  Streicher, 
to  whom  we  owe  a  classical  account  of  this  episode  in 
Schiller's  life,  was  a  young  musician  living  with  his 
mother  in  Stuttgart.  It  had  been  planned  that  he 
should  visit  Hamburg  in  the  near  future,  but  he  now 
persuaded  his  mother  to  advance  him  the  money  that 
was  to  have  been  devoted  to  his  journey,  in  order  that 
he  might  accompany  his  beloved  Schiller  into  exile. 
So  the  friends  bided  their  time  and  meanwhile  *  Fiesco  * 
made  rapid  progress. 

The  wished-for  opportunity  came  on  the  22nd  of 
September.  The  court  was  in  a  flutter  over  the  visit 
of  a  Russian  prince  for  whose  reception  great  prepara- 
tions had  been  made.  In  the  general  excitement 
Schiller  counted  upon  getting  away  unobserved.  So 
he  bade  a  tearful  farewell  to  his  mother  and  sisters, 
who  knew  of  the  secret  that  had  been  kept  away  from 
the  father  for  reasons  of  policy,  and  in  the  evening  he 
drove  out  of  Stuttgart  with  his  friend  Streicher,  giving 


Flight  from  Stuttgart  79 

to  the  guard  the  names  of  Dr.  Ritter  and  Dr.  Wolf. 
The  friends  set  their  faces  northward  towards  Mann- 
heim. As  they  passed  the  brilliantly  illuminated 
Castle  Solitude,  so  Streicher  relates,  Schiller  fell  into 
a  long  revery.  At  last  the  exclamation  '  My  Mother !  ' 
told  the  tale  of  his  thoughts.  But  the  mood  of  sadness 
did  not  last  long.  Cheerful  talk  enlivened  the  journey, 
and  when  the  two  travellers  crossed  the  boundary  of 
the  Palatinate  Schiller  was  jubilant.  He  felt  that  he 
had  entered  a  land  of  freedom  and  enlightenment, 
where  art  was  esteemed  and  talent  honored. 

He  had  with  him,  virtually  complete,  the  manuscript 
of  the  new  play  upon  which  he  had  built  illusory  hopes. 
It  will  be  in  order  to  consider  *  Fiesco  *  before  we 
follow  its  author  into  the  vicissitudes  of  his  exile. 


CHAPTER   rV 
Ebe  ConspfracB  ot  jpiesco  at  <5eitoa 

Ein  Diadem  erkampfen  ist  grosz  ;  es  wegwerfen  ist  gSttlich. 

*  Fiesco\ 

As  we  have  seen,  *  Fiesco  '  was  written  during  the 
summer  and  fall  of  1782.  The  following  winter, 
having  been  rejected  by  the  Mannheim  stage,  it  was 
published  as  a  literary  drama.  This  first  edition  bore 
the  sub-title :    *  A  Republican  Tragedy. ' 

There  is  a  very  general  agreement  that  *  Fiesco  '  is 
upon  the  whole  the  weakest  of  Schiller's  plays.  As  a 
*  republican  tragedy '  it  is  a  disappointment,  since 
its  political  import,  though  obvious  enough  to  one 
acquainted  with  Schiller  from  other  sources,  is  not 
brought  out  distinctly  in  the  play  itself.  Neither  the 
friend  nor  the  enemy  of  republicanism,  in  any  historical 
or  human  sense  of  the  word,  can  derive  the  slightest 
edification  from  *  Fiesco. '  The  political  talk  is  vague 
and  unpractical,  and  we  get  no  clear  idea  of  the  con- 
tending forces.  When  the  curtain  goes  down  upon  the 
chaos  of  intrigue,  one  is  at  a  loss  to  know  how  one  is 
expected  to  feel.  And  yet  the  play  is  full  of  powerful 
scenes,  developed  with  masterly  dramatic  skill.  As  a 
mere  spectacle  it  rivals  '  The  Robbers  ',  to  which  as  a 
drama  it  is  decidedly  inferior.     In  general  its  defects 

80 


The  Historical  Fiesco  8i 

strike  the  reader  more  than  the  spectator.  It  is  not 
the  hand  of  the  dramatist  but  the  eye  of  the  historian 
that  is  lacking.  In  other  words  the  author,  with  all 
his  seeming  profundity  of  philosophic  reflection,  was 
simply  not  ripe  for  historical  tragedy. 

The  bare  facts  of  Fiesco 's  conspiracy,  related  with 
as  little  ascription  of  motive  as  possible,  are  these :  In 
the  year  1528  Andrea  Doria,  who  had  won  great  dis- 
tinction as  an  admiral  in  the  French  service,  but  had 
now  quarreled  with  the  King  of  France  and  hoisted 
the  colors  of  Emperor  Charles  the  Fifth,  landed  an 
expedition  in  Genoa  and  captured  the  city  from  the 
French.  Historians  agree  that  he  could  easily  have 
made  himself  sovereign,  but  instead  of  doing  so  he 
restored  the  old  aristocratic  republic,  thus  winning  for 
himself  the  enduring  title  of  *  father  and  liberator  of 
his  country. '  Although  Doria  was  simply  an  influen- 
tial citizen  of  Genoa  and  enjoyed  the  general  esteem 
of  his  countrymen,  his  prominence  in  the  state  gave 
rise  to  animosities  among  the  noble  families,  and  these 
were  increased  when  he  made  his  young  and  head- 
strong kinsman,  Gianettino,  his  heir.  In  the  year  1 547 
the  malcontents  found  a  leader  in  the  person  of 
Giovanni  Ludovigi  Fiesco,  Count  of  Lavagna.  Fiesco 
was  young,  handsome,  rich  and  ambitious — a  dashing 
and  unscrupulous  cavalier.  His  first  thought  was  to 
restore  the  French  domination  and  make  himself  only 
a  viceroy  of  the  French  king;  but  a  fellow  conspirator, 
Verrina,  persuaded  him  to  seize  for  himself  the  sover- 
eign power  to  which  his  rank  and  talents  entitled  him. 
The  conspiracy  was  carefully  matured,  Fiesco  mean- 
while, to  divert  suspicion,  acting  the  part  of  a  giddy 


82        The  Conspiracy  of  Fiesco  at  Genoa 

spendthrift  and  man  of  fashion.  On  the  night  of 
January  2,  1547,  the  conspirators  made  their  attack 
upon  the  city.  Gianettino  Doria  was  killed,  but  the 
aged  Andrea  made  his  escape.  The  success  of  Fiesco 
appeared  to  be  complete,  but  as  he  was  going  on  board 
a  galley  the  gang-plank  turned,  he  fell  into  the  sea 
and  his  heavy  armor  bore  him  down.  Without  a  leader 
the  conspiracy  instantly  collapsed.  On  the  following 
day  Andrea  returned  and  the  Genoese  republic  went 
on  as  before. 

It  was  a  hint  from  Rousseau  that  suggested  to 
Schiller,  during  his  last  year  in  the  academy,  the  idea 
of  dramatizing  this  episode  of  Genoese  history.  In  the 
German  *  Memoirs  of  Rousseau  '  by  H.  P.  Sturz,  re- 
ferred to  in  the  preceding  chapter,  he  found  Rousseau 
quoted  as  follows : 

The  reason  why  Plutarch  wrote  such  noble  biographies  is  that 
he  never  selected  half-great  men,  such  as  exist  by  the  thousands 
in  quiet  states,  but  grand  exemplars  of  virtue  or  sublime  crimi- 
nals. In  modern  history  there  is  a  man  deserving  of  his  brush, 
and  that  is  Count  Fiesco,  whose  training  made  him  the  very 
man  to  liberate  his  country  from  the  rule  of  the  Dorias.  .  .  . 
There  was  no  other  thought  in  his  soul  than  to  dethrone  the 
usurper.^ 

Here  was  a  tempting  theme  for  a  young  dramatist 
who  had  fed  his  own  soul  upon  Plutarch,  was  enamored 
of  *  greatness  '  in  whatever  form,  and  had  already  tried 
his  hand  upon  a  *  subHme  criminal.'  What  could  be 
better  for  his  purpose  than  a  daring  conspiracy,  led  by 

1  Schiller  refers  to  the  quoted  passage  in  his  review  of  ♦  The  Robbers ', 
Schriften,  II,  357.  It  has  not  been  found  in  Rousseau's  writings.  Sturz 
drew  from  unpublished  sources. 


Conflicting  Sources  83 

a  Plutarchian  hero  who  was  at  the  same  time  a  single- 
minded  patriot  ?  In  his  earliest  musings  it  is  probable 
that  Schiller  accepted  Rousseau's  view  of  Fiesco  at  its 
face  value,  and  when  he  began  to  consult  the  historians 
he  found  at  first  some  support  for  his  preconception. 
Among  his  sources  was  the  '  Conjuration  du  Comte 
de  Fiesque  ',  by  De  Retz;  a  book  which  was  written, 
according  to  a  somewhat  doubtful  tradition,  when  its 
author  was  but  eighteen  years  old,  and  which,  by  its 
clever  perversion  of  history  and  its  subtle  ihsinuation 
of  revolutionary  ideas,  is  said  to  have  drawn  from 
Richelieu  the  comment :  *  There  is  a  dangerous  man !  '  ^ 
In  the  sophisticated  narrative  of  De  Retz  Fiesco 
appears  as  a  modern  Brutus,  whose  thought  of  personal 
aggrandizement  was  altogether  subordinate  to  the 
thought  of  his  country's  welfare.  He  is  made  much 
better  than  he  really  was,  and  the  two  Dorias  much 
worse. 

Further  study  of  the  subject,  however,  soon  opened 
the  eyes  of  Schiller  to  the  other  side  of  the  question ; 
for  in  Robertson's  *  Charles  the  Fifth  '  he  found 
Fiesco  portrayed  as  an  ambitious  revolutionist  who 
sought  to  overthrow  the  Dorias  only  in  order  that 
he  might  make  himself  the  master  of  Genoa — in  short 
as  a  Catiline  instead  of  a  Brutus.  The  dramatic 
problem  then  turned  from  the  first  upon  the  character 
of  Fiesco.  In  the  '  Dramaturgie  '  of  Lessing  the 
doctrine  had  been  proclaimed  that  the  dramatist  is  not 
bound  by  the  so-called  facts  of  history;  that  he  may 

1  On  the  character  of  De  Retz's  work,  and  its  relation  to  the  original 
of  Mascardi,  consult  the  Notes  and  Introduction  by  Chantelauze  in  Vol. 
V  of  the  '  Grands  Ecrivains '  edition  of  De  Retz,  p.  475  flf. 


84       The  Conspiracy  of  Fiesco  at  Genoa 

deal  with  them  as  suits  his  artistic  purpose.  But  what 
was  the  purpose  to  be  in  this  case  ?  Should  it  be  a 
tragedy  of  austere  patriotism  going  down  against  a 
relatively  bad  order  too  strong  to  be  resisted,  or  a 
tragedy  of  corrupt  ambition  dashing  itself  to  death 
against  a  relatively  good  order  too  strong  to  be  over- 
thrown ?  Either  conception,  if  consistently  worked 
out,  might  have  sufficed  for  the  groundwork  of  a  good 
historical  tragedy.  What  Schiller  did,  however,  was 
to  vacillate  between  the  two,  to  blend  them  in  a  con- 
fusing way,  and  finally  to  let  the  interest  of  his  play 
turn  largely  upon  the  hero's  mental  struggle  between 
selfish  ambition  and  unselfish  patriotism. 

The  Catiline  conception  required  an  avenger  of 
Genoa,  for  it  was  evident  ^  that  the  accidental  drowning 
of  Fiesco  in  the  moment  of  his  triumph  would  never 
do  in  a  play.  It  was  necessary  that  his  death  appear 
as  a  punishment,  a  nemesis.  So  for  the  role  of  avenger 
Schiller  invented  a  stern  patriot  to  whom,  without  his- 
torical warrant,  he  gave  the  name  of  Verrina.  Verrina 
is  the  real  Brutus.  To  furnish  the  conspirators  with 
a  definite  grievance  Gianettino  was  made  to  violate 
the  helpless  Bertha,  who  was  then  provided  with 
an  avenger  in  the  person  of  the  young  Bourgognino. 
Leonora,  the  wife  of  Fiesco,  is  historical.  Robertson 
relates  that  on  the  night  of  the  uprising  Fiesco 
went  to  take  leave  of  his  wife,  * '  whom  he  loved  with 

^  It  was  evident,  that  is,  to  Schiller.  In  the  dedication  of  '  Fiesco '  to 
Professor  Abel  he  wrote  :  "Die  wahre  Katastrophe  des  Komplotts,  worin 
der  Graf  durch  einen  unglQcklichen  Zufall  am  Ziel  seiner  Wtlnsche  zu 
Grunde  geht,  muszte  durchaus  verandert  werden,  denn  die  Natur  des 
Dramas  duldet  den  Finger  des  Ungefahrs  oder  der  unmittelbarea 
Vorsehung  nicht." 


Character  of  Schillcr^s  Hero  85 

tender  affection."  He  found  her  **  in  all  the  anguish 
of  uncertainty  and  fear  ' ' ;  and  her  terror  was  increased 
when  she  learned  what  was  on  foot.  She  endeavored 
by  her  tears  and  entreaties  and  her  despair  to  divert 
him  from  his  purpose.  But  in  vain ;  he  left  her  with 
the  exclamation:  ''Farewell!  You  shall  either  never 
see  me  more,  or  you  shall  behold  to-morrow  every- 
thing in  Genoa  subject  to  your  power. ' '  On  the 
other  hand,  the  intrigue  of  Fiesco  and  Julia,  the  sister 
of  Gianettino,  is  unhistorical.  It  was  invented  by 
Schiller  as  a  part  of  the  general  scheme  of  duplicity 
and  frivolity  by  which  Fiesco  should  seek  to  quiet  the 
suspicion  of  the  Dorias.  If  this  particular  invention 
was  upon  the  whole  unfortunate — the  matter  will  be 
discussed  further  on, — the  same  cannot  be  said  of  the 
Moor  Hassan,  who  becomes  Fiesco 's  factotum  and  ends 
his  career  on  the  gallows.  The  rascally  Moor  is  the 
most  picturesque  figure  and  the  most  telling  role  in  the 
whole  piece. 

Schiller  introduces  Fiesco  as  a  seemingly  frivolous 
roue,  flirting  desperately  with  the  Countess  Julia,  to 
the  great  torment  of  his  wife  Leonora.  We  soon  see, 
however,  that  the  frivolity  is  only  a  mask:  he  has  a 
serious  purpose  and  that  purpose  is  to  make  himself 
master  of  Genoa.  At  first,  indeed,  he  toys  with  the 
idea  of  a  nobler  fame.  In  a  soliloquy  at  the  end  of  the 
second  act  he  exclaims :  *  To  conquer  a  diadem  is 
grand;  to  throw  it  away  is  divine.  Down,  tyrant! 
Let  Genoa  be  free  and  me  be  its  happiest  citizen ! ' 
But  this  mood  does  not  long  withstand  the  intoxication 
of  power.  To  rule,  to  rule  alone,  to  feel  that  Genoa 
owes  everything  to  him  only, — this  soon  becomes  his 


S6       The  Conspiracy  of  Ficsco  at  Genoa 

all-absorbing  ambition.  At  the  last,  when  the  revolu- 
tion has  succeeded,  he  puts  on  the  ducal  purple  and 
the  people  are  ready  to  acquiesce  in  the  new  regime. 
But  old  Verrina  is  not  so  tractable.  When  he  cannot 
prevail  upon  Fiesco  to  doff  the  hateful  insignia,  he 
pushes  him  into  the  sea  and  exclaims  in  disgust :  '  I 
am  going  to  Andrea !  ' 

Such  a  scheme,  it  is  evident,  does  not  provide  for  a 
*  republican  tragedy  ',  except  in  a  very  loose  sense.  If 
we  had  a  republican  idealist  pitting  his  strength  against 
a  tyrant  and  going  down  in  the  battle,  either  because 
of  his  adversary's  superior  strength  or  because  of  some 
weakness  in  his  own  character,  that  would  be  a  tragedy 
of  republicanism.  In  Schiller's  play,  however,  the 
conflict  is  not  of  that  character.  At  heart  Fiesco  is 
never  a  republican,  though  he  sometimes  takes  his 
mouth  full  of  fine  republican  phrases.  His  mainspring 
of  action  is  not  the  welfare  of  Genoa,  but  his  own 
aggrandizement.  Old  Andrea,  whose  power  he  plots 
to  overthrow  and  whose  magnanimity  puts  him  to 
shame,  is  actually  a  better  man  than  he.  If  he  has  a 
measure  of  our  sympathy  in  his  feud  with  the  younger 
Doria,  that  is  only  because  Gianettino  is  portrayed  as 
a  vulgar  brute  deserving  of  nothing  but  the  gallows. 
Politically  there  is  little  to  choose  between  the  two,  so 
long  as  we  regard  virtue  as  consisting  in  an  unselfish 
devotion  to  an  ideal  of  republican  liberty. 

The  character  of  Fiesco  being  what  it  is,  his  final 
catastrophe  produces  no  very  clear  impression.  One 
does  not  see  precisely  what  bearing  it  is  to  have  on  the 
political  fortunes  of  Genoa.  At  first  blush  the  con- 
clusion seems  to  mean  that  the  state  has  been  saved 


Character  of  Vcrrina  87 

from  the  clutches  of  a  tyrant  who  was  about  to  subvert 
its  liberties.  But  if  we  look  at  the  matter  in  that  light 
we  have  a  tragedy,  not  of  republicanism,  but  of  the 
**  vaulting  ambition  which  o'erleaps  itself  and  falls  on 
the  other. '  *  With  the  usurper  Fiesco,  and  the  brute 
Gianettino,  out  of  the  way,  the  state  returns  to  the 
good  regimen  of  Andrea,  who  represents  the  only 
republicanism  then  thinkable,  democracy  in  the  modern 
sense  being  nowhere  in  question.  But  it  is  doubtful 
whether  Schiller  intends  Fiesco  to  be  thus  reprobated. 
The  hot-blooded  Italian  has  certain  traits  that  win 
sympathy ;  and  even  his  consuming  ambition  is  so  in- 
vested with  a  glamour  of  romantic  enthusiasm  that  it 
is  difficult  to  reckon  him  among  the  dangerous  tyrants. 
If  he  is  false  to  his  better  nature,  we  at  any  rate  see 
that  he  has  a  better  nature.  One  is  thus  tempted  to 
regard  Verrina's  act  as  that  of  a  madman  who  cares 
more  for  form  than  for  substance  and  sees  danger 
where  there  is  none. 

For  Verrina,  who  plays  the  part  of  Brutus  to  his 
country's  Caesar  and  seems  to  represent  the  sternest 
type  of  republican  virtue,  is  a  repulsive  fanatic.  The 
horrible  curse  that  he  pronounces  upon  his  daughter 
when  he  hears  that  she  has  been  outraged  is  significant 
at  once  for  his  character  and  for  the  young  Schiller's 
notion  of  tragic  pathos.  Throwing  a  black  veil  over 
her  head  he  vociferates  thus: 

Be  blind  !  Accursed  be  the  air  that  fans  your  cheek  !  Ac- 
cursed be  the  sleep  that  refreshes  you  !  Accursed  be  every 
human  trace  that  is  welcome  to  your  misery  !  Go  down  into  the 
deepest  dungeon  of  my  house  !  Moan  !  Howl !  Drag  out  the 
time  with  your  woe.     Let  your  life  be  the  slimy  writhing  of  the 


88        The  Conspiraqr  of  Fiesco  at  Genoa 

dying  worm, — the  obstinate,  crushing  struggle  between  being 
and  not-being.  And  this  curse  shall  rest  upon  you  until  Gianet- 
tino  has  gasped  out  his  last  breath. 

After  this  it  is  difficult  to  look  up  to  Verrina  as  a 
competent  savior  of  society,  however  much  one  may- 
sympathize  with  him  in  his  private  feud.  His  cynical 
tergiversation  at  the  end  makes  his  previous  conduct 
ridiculous.  It  seems  to  say  that  he  has  been  partici- 
pating in  a  tragic  farce  which  is  now  ended.  One 
might  almost  get  the  impression  that  the  whole  play  is 
only  a  satire  upon  republican  clap-trap. 

Satire,  however,  was  very  far  from  Schiller's 
thoughts.  His  enthusiasm  for  liberty  was  much  too 
genuine  to  permit  any  trifling  with  the  sacred  theme. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  he  began  *  Fiesco  '  supposing 
that  it  would  prove  a  convenient  setting  for  those  in- 
spiring ideas  of  liberty  which  he  had  absorbed  from  the 
reading  of  ancient  history  and  of  modern  revolutionary 
literature.  They  were  vague  and  tumultuous  ideas, 
which  had-  very  little  relation  to  a  definite  theory  of 
government,  but  he  was  very  much  in  earnest  with 
them,  especially  after  his  rasping  experience  with  the 
Duke  of  Wiirttemberg.  No  one  can  mistake  the 
autobiographic  note  in  the  speech  of  Bourgognino 
which  closes  the  first  act:  *  I  have  long  felt  in  my 
breast  something  that  would  not  be  satisfied.  Now  of 
a  sudden  I  know  what  it  was.  (Springing  up  heroically) 
I  have  a  tyrant.'  But  the  young  dramatist  had  not 
proceeded  far  before  he  discovered  that  his  ideal 
requirement  was  out  of  tune  with  the  facts.  To  repre- 
sent Fiesco  as  a  would-be  liberator  of  his  country  was 
impossible  without  a  violent  perversion  of  history  for 


Fiesco's  Inconsistency  89 

which  he  was  not  prepared.  Out  of  deference  to  his- 
tory he  was  led  to  abase  his  hero  into  something  like 
a  Catilinarian  conspirator.  But  he  could  not  give  up 
the  idea  of  a  republican  tragedy ;  so  he  tried  to  save  it 
by  depicting  his  hero  as  a  man  who  had  it  in  him  to 
become  a  noble  liberator,  but  is  corrupted  by  the 
dazzling  lures  of  power  and  so  led  on  to  ruin. 

There  are  those  who  regard  Fiesco's  inconsistency 
as  an  artistic  complexity  of  motive  going  to  show  that 
Schiller  had  progressed  in  the  knowledge  of  life  and 
become  aware  that  human  heroism  is  apt  to  be  more 
or  less  mixed  with  base  alloy.  One  writer^  thinks  it 
shows  ' '  how  intelligently  he  had  studied  the  Italian 
Renaissance  and  how  correctly  he  had  grasped  its 
spirit. ' '  But  this  is  to  give  him  a  credit  that  he  does 
not  fully  deserve.  The  simple  truth  is  that  *  Fiesco  ' 
was  written  very  hastily  and  that  its  author  had  spent 
precious  little  time  in  studying  the  Italian  Renaissance, 
though  it  must  be  admitted  that  he  possessed  a  remark- 
able gift  for  visualizing  the  little  that  he  had  read. 
Complexity  of  motive  is  all  very  well, — very  human 
and  very  Italian ;  but  the  difficulty  is  that  in  this  case 
it  is  not  properly  subordinated  to  a  luminous  dramatic 
idea.  When  a  man's  motives  become  so  complex  and 
contradictory  that  one  does  not  know  how  to  take  him, 
he  ceases  to  be  available  for  the  higher  purposes 
of  tragedy.  That  '  Fiesco  '  produces  this  bewildering 
effect  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  inner  logic  of  the  piece 
had  not  been  fully  and  consistently  thought  out  when 
the  writing  began. 

And  this  is  not  all.  The  author  seems  unable  to 
1  H.  H.  Boyesen,  in  his  biography  of  Schiller,  Chapter  III. 


90 


The  Conspiracy  of  Fiesco  at  Genoa 


control  and  guide  the  unruly  spirits  whom  he  has 
conjured  into  life.  There  is  no  lucid  grouping  of 
historical  forces.  France,  Germany  and  the  Pope 
stand  dimly  in  the  background  like  mechanical  pup- 
pets, and  we  never  learn  what  they  severally  represent 
in  relation  to  Genoese  politics.  Gianettino  pulls  a 
string  and  has  a  sanction  for  the  wholesale  murder  of 
his  countrymen.  Fiesco  pulls  another  string  and  gets 
men  and  galleys  ad  libitum.  We  do  not  see  an  in- 
telligible clash  of  great  political  ideas,  but  a  wild 
melee,  in  the  outcome  of  which  we  have  no  reason  to 
be  particularly  interested.  It  is  all  as  little  tragic  as 
a  back-country  vendetta,  or  a  factional  fight  in  the 
halls  of  a  modern  parliament. 

How  loosely  the  play  is  articulated,  and  how  little 
of  logical  compulsion  there  is  in  the  catastrophe,  is 
shown  with  fatal  clearness  by  Schiller's  procedure  in 
revising  his  work  for  the  Mannheim  stage.  By  a  few 
strokes  of  the  pen  at  the  end  he  changed  its  entire 
character.  In  the  original  draft  his  vacillating  mind 
had  leaned  more  and  more  decisively  towards  the 
Catilinarian  conception  of  his  hero,  and  the  book-ver- 
sion of  1783  was  accordingly  supplied  with  a  motto 
from  Sallust's  'Catiline.'  The  sentence  runs:  Nam 
id  f acinus  imprimis  ego  memorabile  existimo^  sceleris 
atque  periculi  novitate.  So  the  conspiracy  was  to  be  a 
f acinus  and  a  sceluSy  and  the  hero,  of  course,  another 
'  exalted  criminal '  in  the  style  of  Karl  Moor.  In  the 
stage  version  we  observe  that  the  motto  from  Sallust 
has  been  dropped,  and  that  while  the  title  of  *  tragedy  * 
{Trauerspiel)  is  retained,  the  adjective  *  republican  '  is 
omitted.     Furthermore,  without  any  radical   revision 


The  Qianged  Conclusion 


91 


of  the  preceding  portraiture  taken  as  a  whole,  a  non- 
tragical  conclusion  has  been  substituted  for  the  final 
catastrophe.  Fiesco,  hard  pressed  by  the  strenuous 
Verrina,  declares  that  his  heart  has  been  right  all 
along;  only  he  was  resolved  that  Genoa's  freedom 
should  be  his  work  and  his  alone.  So  he  breaks  his 
scepter,  concludes  an  eternal  friendship  with  the 
amazed  Verrina,  and  bids  the  people  embrace  their 
*  happiest  fellow-citizen. '  Thus  the  original  version, 
which  had  called  itself  a  republican  tragedy  and  was  a 
tragedy  without  being  republican,  became  a  play  which 
is  truly  republican  without  being  called  so,  but  is  no 
longer  a  tragedy. 

This  singular  volte-face  on  the  part  of  our  dramatist 
has  of  course  been  the  subject  of  infinite  discussion. 
The  most  of  the  critics  appear  to  regard  it  as  a  mis- 
take, to  say  the  least.  One  of  them,  Bellermann,^ 
surmises  that  Schiller  made  the  change  against  his  will 
to  meet  the  views  of  Dalberg.  But  of  this  there  is  no 
clear  proof;  and  surely  we  cannot  suppose  that  Schiller 
would  have  consented  even  reluctantly  to  a  change 
which  he  himself  felt  to  be  utterly  absurd  because  a 
complete  stultification  of  the  preceding  plot.  He  must 
have  felt  that  the  new  ending  was  artistically  at  least 
possible.  And  so  it  is.  It  is  with  *  Fiesco  '  somewhat 
as  with  the  Bible :  the  conclusion  that  one  reaches  must 

1  "Schillers  Dramen,"  Berlin,  1898,  I,  iii  fF.  Bellermann,  who 
defends  through  thick  and  thin  the  unity  and  consistency  of  the  original 
'  Fiesco  *,  thinks  that  it  is  from  first  to  last  a  tragedy  of  vaulting  ambi- 
tion,— not  a  political  play  at  all,  but  a  character  play, — and  that  no 
other  idea  ever  entered  Schiller's  mind.  But  his  argument  is  anything 
but  convincing  and  he  carefully  refrains  from  all  discussion  of  the  tell- 
tale phrase,  '  a  republican  tragedy  '. 


92 


The  G)nspiracy  of  Fiesco  at  Genoa 


depend  upon  the  particular  texts  that  one  selects  for 
emphasis.  If  we  accent  certain  passages  and  pass 
lightly  over  others,  we  get  the  impression  that  it  is  a 
tragedy  of  selfish  ambition  doomed  to  disaster.  If  we 
accent  a  different  set  of  passages,  we  are  sure  that  it  is 
a  drama  of  republican  idealism,  sorely  tempted  by 
autocratic  ambition,  but  destined  to  triumph  finally 
over  the  baser  motive.  In  the  one  view  Verrina  is 
a  virtuous  patriot;  in  the  other  he  is  a  mad  fanatic 
who  does  not  understand  the  greatness  of  his  chief. 
After  Fiesco  declares  in  soliloquy, — when  a  dramatic 
character  is  supposed  to  speak  his  real  sentiments 
if  anywhere, — that  it  is  far  nobler  to  renounce  a 
diadem  than  to  win  it,  we  are  certainly  justified  in 
expecting  that  he  will  seek  the  higher  glory  for  him- 
self. Thus  either  ending  is  possible,  and  which 
is  the  better  is  mainly  a  question  of  stage  effect. 
Neither  is  historical,  and  neither  gives  a  republican 
tragedy. 

It  would  be  pedantic  indeed  to  have  devoted  so 
many  words  to  a  mere  matter  of  name.  If  a  drama  is 
good  it  signifies  but  little  what  we  call  it,  or  whether  its 
title  be  exactly  appropriate.  In  this  case,  however, 
we  have  to  do  with  a  vital  defect  and  not  merely  with 
a  misnomer.  A  play  may  be  good  in  different  ways; 
and  what  the  preceding  criticism  is  intended  to  bring 
out  is  the  fact  that  the  strength  of  *  Fiesco  ',  such  as  it 
has,  does  not  lie  in  the  intellectual  organization  of  the 
whole.  The  mind  of  Schiller,. but  little  trained  hitherto 
upon  historical  studies,  had  not  yet  learned  how  to 
extract  a  clear  poetic  essence  from  a  confused  medley 
of  recorded  facts  and  opinions.     Nature  had  endowed 


Strong  and  Weak  Points  95 

him  with  a  vivid  imagination  for  details,  but  study  had 
not  yet  fitted  him  to  exercise  in  a  large  and  luminous 
way  the  sovereignty  of  the  artist.  His  facts  confused 
him  and  pulled  him  this  way  and  that.  And  so  we 
miss  in  *  Fiesco  '  that  '  monumental  fresco-painting  ', 
as  it  has  been  called,  which  constitutes  the  charm  of  his 
riper  historical  dramas. 

But  average  play-goers  are  wont  to  bother  their 
heads  but  little  over  these  questions  of  higher  artistic 
import  which  are  apt  to  bulk  so  large  before  the  mind 
of  the  literary  critic.  There  are  hundreds  of  literary 
dramas  that  are  impossible  or  deadly  dull  upon  the 
stage ;  and  conversely  dramatic  talent  will  often  make 
an  interesting  play  out  of  a  succession  of  scenes  that 
lead  the  philosophic  mind  nowhither.  If  *  Fiesco ' 
remains  a  fairly  good  stage-play,  it  is  because  the 
interest  turns  not  upon  its  ultimate  import,  but  upon  its 
elaborate  intrigue,  its  exciting  situations  and  its  general 
picturesqueness.  The  intrigue  carries  one  along  by 
its  very  audacity,  notwithstanding  that  in  the  light  of 
reason  much  of  it  appears  rather  absurd.  Thus  we 
wonder  how  a  mere  brute  like  Gianettino  can  have 
become  such  a  power  in  the  state  right  under  the  eyes 
of  the  wise  and  good  Andrea,  who  is  subject  to  no 
illusions  with  regard  to  him.  No  objection  can  be 
made  to  Fiesco 's  mask  of  gayety  and  cynicism  in  the 
first  two  acts,  for  that  is  historical.  But  was  it  neces- 
sary for  him  to  deceive  and  torture  the  wife  to  whom 
in  the  end  he  appears  loyally  devoted  ?  In  any  case 
it  is  clear  that  the  exposition  should  have  hinted  some- 
how at  the  true  condition  of  affairs,  for  it  is  a  good  old 
rule  that  while  the  people  on  the  stage  may  disguise 


94 


The  GDnspiracy  of  Ficsco  at  Genoa 


themselves  and  befool  one  another  as  they  will,  the 
audience  must  be  kept  posted. 

As  it  is,  there  is  no  suggestion  of  make-believe  in 
Fiesco*s  courting  of  Julia.  When  he  exclaims  in  solil- 
oquy that  she  loves  him  and  he  *  envies  no  god  ',  one 
is  justified  in  assuming  that  chivalrous  devotion  to 
his  wife  is  not  among  his  virtues.  It  is  to  be  sup- 
posed, apparently,  that  he  makes  love  to  Julia  in 
order  to  be  seen  of  men;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact 
nothing  comes  of  his  flirtation  except  the  torture  of 
his  wife.  No  one  is  deceived  whom  it  was  important 
for  him  to  deceive,  and  the  whole  incident  serves  only 
to  put  his  character  in  a  dubious  light.  Is  this  what 
Schiller  intended  ?  Did  he  feel  that  his  hot-blooded 
Italian  should  not  be  made  too  much  of  an  idealist  in 
his  relation  to  women  ?  Did  he  wish  it  to  be  under- 
stood that  Fiesco  is  honestly  infatuated  with  the 
voluptuous  Julia  until  he  learns  of  her  attempt  to  poison 
his  wife  .''  These  are  queries  to  which  the  play  gives 
no  very  clear  answer.  So  far  as  the  conspiracy  is 
concerned  the  whole  affair  with  Julia  is  rather  badly 
motivated. 

Still  more  dubious,  from  a  rational  point  of  view,  is 
Fiesco's  relation  to  the  Moor.  That  a  man  having 
large  political  designs  requiring  secrecy  and  fidelity 
should,  on  the  spur  oi  the  moment,  choose  as  his  con- 
fidential agent  a  venal  scoundrel  who  has  just  tried  to 
murder  him,  is,  to  say  the  least,  a  little  improbable. 
Here  Schiller  was  evidently  trying  to  Shaksperize 
again;  trying,  that  is,  to  assert  the  poet's  sovereign 
lordship  over  the  petty  bonds  of  Philistine  logic.  The 
Moor's  frank  exposition  of  the  professional  ethics  of 


The  Female  Characters 


95 


rascality,  the  dash  with  which  he  does  his  work,  his 
ubiquitous  serviceableness,  and  his  rogue's  humor  make 
him  a  picturesque  character  and  account  for  his  having 
become  on  the  stage  the  most  popular  figure  in  the 
piece ;  but  that  Fiesco  should  be  willing  to  trust  him- 
self and  his  cause  to  such  a  scamp,  and  that  such 
remarkable  results  should  be  achieved  by  the  black 
man's  kaleidoscopic  activity,  brings  into  the  play  an 
element  of  buffoonery  that  injures  it  on  the  serious  side. 
The  daring  play  of  master  and  man  excites  a  certain 
interest  in  their  game,  but  it  is  impossible  to  care  very 
much  who  wins.  From  a  dramaturgic  point  of  view, 
however,  the  Moor  is  a  very  useful  invention,  since 
Fiesco  is  thereby  enabled  to  direct  the  whole  conspiracy 
from  his  palace,  and  at  the  same  time,  in  the  person 
of  his  lieutenant,  to  be  in  every  part  of  the  city.  Thus 
the  action  is  concentrated  and  changes  of  scene  are 
avoided. 

As  a  portrayer  of  female  character  the  author  of 
*  Fiesco  '  has  clearly  made  some  progress  since  his  first 
lame  attempt  in  *  The  Robbers  ',  but  the  improvement 
is  by  no  means  dazzling.  Both  Leonora  and  Julia  are 
singular  creatures,  and  their  unaccountableness  is  not 
of  the  right  feminine  kind  that  offers  an  attractive  role 
to  a  good  actress.  Why  should  the  Countess  Fiesco, 
herself  an  aristocrat  and  a  woman  with  heroic  blood  in 
her  veins,  submit  so  meekly  in  her  own  house  to  the 
coarse  effrontery  of  the  woman  who  has  wronged  her  .-* 
We  get  the  impression  that  she  is  only  a  crushed 
flower, — a  helpless,  wan-cheeked  thing,  with  nothing 
womanly  about  her  except  her  jealousy.  And  then, 
at   the    end,   she   suddenly  develops  into  a  heroine. 


96        The  Conspiracy  of  Fiesco  at  Genoa 

And  what  a  strange  heroine !  No  one  will  chide  her 
for  resorting  on  the  fatal  night  to  the  protection  of  male 
attire, — a  good  enough  Shaksperian  device, — but  how 
remarkable  that  a  woman  wandering  crazily  in  the 
dark,  and  already  sufficiently  disguised,  should  borrow 
a  tell-tale  cloak  and  a  worse  than  useless  sword  from 
a  corpse  that  she  happens  to  stumble  upon!  No 
wonder  that  Schiller  in  revising  for  the  stage  decided 
to  let  Leonora  live  rather  than  provide  for  her  death 
by  such  a  stagy  tour  de  force.  In  the  stage  version, 
however,  she  does  not  reappear  after  the  parting  scene, 
and  so  we  are  left  to  wonder  why  she  was  introduced 
at  all. 

In  Madame  Julia  we  have  a  type  of  woman  who  was 
meant)  to  be  repulsive,  and  so  far  forth  the  young  artist 
must  be  admitted  to  have  wrought  successfully.  She 
is  somewhat  minutely  described  as  a  *  tall  and  plump 
widow  of  twenty-five;  a  proud  coquette,  her  beauty 
spoiled  by  its  oddity;  dazzling  and  not  pleasing,  and 
'With  a  wicked,  cynical  expression.'  That  such  a 
woman  should  befool  Fiesco  and  rejoice  in  her  triumph 
is  quite  thinkable,  but  her  qualities  are  those  which 
usually  go  with  a  certain  amount  of  discretion.  That 
she  should  suddenly  lose  her  head  and  throw  herself 
away  in  a  voluptuous  frenzy  hardly  comports  with  the 
type.  Nor  is  there  anything  in  the  inventory  of  her 
qualities  that  prepares  us  for  her  sudden  assumption  of 
the  role  of  poisoner,  when  she  is  already,  as  she  must 
suppose,  the  mistress  of  the  situation.  In  her  alterca- 
tion with  Leonora  in  the  second  scene  of  Act  II  she 
uses  a  number  of  coarse  expressions  befitting  a  woman 
of  vulgar  birth, — wherein  some  of  the  critics  see  an 


i^Extravagant  Diction  97 

evidence  of  Schiller's  unfamiliarity  with  the  ways  of 
refined  ladies.  It  is  quite  possible,  however,  that  we 
have  to  do  instead  with  a  realistic  attempt  to  make  her 
language  match  the  essential  vulgarity  of  her  character. 
At  any  rate  it  is  interesting  to  know  that  the  scene 
was  offensive  to  Schiller  himself.  He  worked  upon  it 
with  repugnance  and  was  glad  to  be  able  to  omit  it 
entirely  from  the  stage  version.^ 

In  respect  of  its  diction  '  Fiesco  '  is  in  no  way  essen- 
tially different  from  *  The  Robbers  ',  albeit  some  have 
imagined  that  a  faint  improvement  is  discernible. 
There  is  the  same  tearing  of  passion  to  tatters,  the 
same  predilection  for  florid  rhetoric  in  the  sentimental 
passages,  and  for  frenzied  talk  and  action  in  passages 
of  more  violent  emotion.  When  Fiesco  discovers  that 
he  has  killed  his  wife,  he  first  thrashes  about  him 
furiously  with  his  sword.  Then  he  gnashes  his  teeth 
at  God  in  heaven  and  expresses  himself  thus :  *  If  I 
only  had  His  universe  between  my  teeth,  I  feel  in  a 
mood  to  tear  all  nature  into  a  grinning  monster  having 
the  semblance  of  my  pain.  *  In  his  final  expostulation 
with  the  would-be  tyrant,  Verrina  delivers  himself  of 
this  sentence :  '  Had  I  too  been  such  an  honest  dolt  as 
not  to  recognize  the  rogue  in  you,  Fiesco,  by  all  the 
horrors  of  eternity,  I  would  twist  a  cord  out  of  my  own 
intestines  and  throttle  you  with  it,  so  that  my  fleeing 
soul  should  bespatter  you  with  yeasty  foam-bubbles.  * 

No  wonder  that  critics  and  actors  alike  were  offended 

by  such  insanity  of  rant  and  that  Schiller  himself  soon 

saw  the  folly  of  it.      He  had  got  the  idea  that  when  a 

man  is  figuratively  *  beside  himself ' ,  the  most  effective 

1  This  appears  from  a  letter  of  Sept.  29,  1783,  to  Dalberg.     . 


98       The  Conspiracy  of  Ficsco  at  Genoa 

way  to  portray  his  state  of  feeling  is  to  make  him  talk 
and  act  like  a  veritable  madman.  He  had  yet  to  learn 
the  profound  wisdom,  for  poets  as  well  as  actors,  of 
Hamlet's  rule  to  *'  acquire  and  beget,  in  the  whirlwind 
of  passion,  a  temperance  that  may  give  it  smoothness. '  * 


CHAPTER   V 
^be  fVLQitlvc  in  f>iDind 

Ich  kann  nicht  Fiirstendiener  sein. — '  Don  Carlos '. 

When  Schiller  arrived  at  Mannheim,  in  the  latter 
part  of  September,  1782,  he  was  soon  made  aware  that 
he  had  reckoned  badly  on  the  '  Greek  climate  of  the 
Palatinate*.  The  friends  to  whom  he  showed  himself 
were  shocked  at  the  audacity  of  his  conduct;  they 
could  only  advise  him  to  conciliate  the  Duke  of  Wiirt- 
temberg  and  meanwhile  to  keep  out  of  sight.  So  he 
wrote  another  very  humble  letter  to  his  sovereign, 
explaining  the  desperate  circumstances  that  had  led  to 
his  flight  and  offering  to  return  on  condition  of  being 
allowed  to  continue  his  authorship.  This  letter  he 
sent  to  his  general,  Auge,  asking  his  mediation.  In 
due  time  Auge  replied,  advising  him  to  return,  as  the 
duke  was  *  graciously  minded. '  But  this  was  not 
enough ;  Schiller  knew  his  man  too  well  and  had  prob- 
ably never  expected  that  his  appeal  would  have  any 
other  effect  than  possibly  to  mollify  the  duke  a  little 
and  thus  avert  trouble  for  Captain  Schiller. 

The  fugitive  had  fixed  all  his  hopes  on  the  produc- 
tion of  '  Fiesco '  at  the  Mannheim  theater.  The 
manager,  Meyer,  was  well  disposed  toward  him,  and  it 
was  soon  arranged  that  Schiller  should  read  his  new 
play  to  a  company  of  actors.     The  reading  turned  out 

99 


loo  The  Fugitive  in  Hiding 

a  dismal  failure.  One  by  one  the  distressed  auditors 
withdrew,  wondering  if  what  they  heard  was  really  the 
work  of  the  same  man  who  had  written  *  The  Robbers  '. 
The  next  day  Meyer  looked  over  the  manuscript  by 
himself  and  saw  that  it  was  not  so  bad  after  all ;  it  had 
merely  been  murdered  in  the  reading  by  its  author's 
bad  voice  and  extravagant  declamation.  But  the 
decision  did  not  rest  with  the  friendly  Meyer ;  it  rested 
with  Dalberg,  who  was  just  then  away  from  home. 
Meanwhile,  as  reports  came  from  Stuttgart  to  the  effect 
that  Schiller's  disappearance  had  caused  a  great  sensa- 
tion and  that  there  was  talk  of  pursuit,  or  of  a  possible  de- 
mand for  his  extradition,  the  two  friends  thought  it  best 
not  to  remain  in  Mannheim.  Schiller  did  not  actually 
believe  that  the  duke  would  pursue  him,  but  there  was 
no  telling;  it  was  best  to  be  on  the  safe  side. 

Accordingly  '  Dr.  Ritter  '  and  *  Dr.  Wolf  set  out  for 
Frankfurt.  From  there  Schiller  addressed  a  pathetic 
letter  to  Dalberg,  setting  forth  that  he  was  in  great  dis- 
tress and  asking  for  an  advance  of  money  against  the 
first  performance  of  'Fiesco'.  But  the  cautious  Dal- 
berg, who  had  just  been  in  Stuttgart,  replied  coolly  that 
*  Fiesco  '  was  unsuited  to  the  stage  and  would  need  to 
be  radically  revised.  So  the  luckless  author,  having  no 
other  recourse,  returned  to  the  village  of  Oggersheim,  in 
the  vicinity  of  Mannheim,  and  there,  with  the  faithful 
Streicher  to  keep  him  company,  he  spent  the  next  few 
weeks,  partly  upon  the  thankless  revision  of  *  Fiesco  ' 
and  partly  upon  '  Louise  Miller',  which  interested  him 
more.  Having  done  his  best  with  *  Fiesco  '  he  sent  it 
to  Dalberg,  who  curtly  refused  it  a  second  time.  His 
theatrical    hopes    thus    completely    baffled,     Schiller 


Arrival  at  Baucrbach  loi 

turned  over  his  play  to  the  bookseller  Schwan,  who 
gave  him    eleven   louis  d'ors    for  it  and,  ipj^jcdiateiyi  '> 
published  it  as  a  book  for  the  reader. 

In  his  extremity  the  exile  now  bethought  him  of  the 
kind-hearted  lady  who  had  offered  him  an  asylum  in 
case  of  need.  Frau  Henriette  von  Wolzogen  was  a 
widow  of  humble  means  who  had  several  sons  in  the 
academy  at  Stuttgart.  She  had  conceived  a  liking  for 
Schiller,  and  although  there  was  some  danger  that  her 
role  of  protectress  might,  if  discovered,  offend  the 
Duke  of  Wiirttemberg,  she  did  not  hesitate  to  keep  her 
word.  The  necessary  arrangements  were  soon  made, 
and  late  in  November  Schiller  bade  farewell  to  Streicher 
and  set  out  for  Bauerbach,  a  little  village  near  Meinin- 
gen,  to  occupy  the  vacant  cottage  that  had  been  placed 
at  his  disposal.  He  still  kept  the  name  of  *  Dr. 
Ritter  *, — not  so  much  from  the  fear  of  arrest,  prob- 
ably, as  from  a  natural  desire  to  remain  in  obscurity 
until  he  had  won  a  position  which  would  justify  his 
flight  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  and  more  particularly 
of  his  father.  While  at  Oggersheim  he  had  occasionally 
sent  out  misleading  letters,  in  which  he  spoke  of 
journeys  here  and  there,  of  remarkable  prosperity  and 
of  brilliant  prospects  in  Leipzig,  Berlin  and  St.  Peters- 
burg. But  his  family  knew  of  his  whereabouts,  and 
before  leaving  the  Palatinate  he  contrived  a  meeting 
with  his  mother  and  his  sister  Christophine,  who  drove 
over  to  a  half-way  village  to  see  him.  He  arrived  at 
Bauerbach  on  the  7th  of  December,  and  wrote  thus  to 
Streicher  on  the  following  day:  *  At  last  I  am  here, 
happy  and  contented  that  I  am  actually  ashore.  I 
found  everything  in  excess  of  my  wishes;   needs  no 


I02 


The  Fugitive  in  Hiding 


,  .  Ipnger  trouble  me,  and  no  annoyances  from  outside 
-  **  ihall  disturb  my  poetic  dreams  and  my  idealistic  illu- 
sions. ' — And  in  this  quiet  retreat,  well  supplied  by  the 
villagers  with  the  necessaries  of  physical  existence,  he 
did  actually  find  for  the  next  seven  months  all  that  he 
needed.  There  were  books,  friendship,  leisure,  peace, 
— until  the  peace  was  disturbed  by  a  maiden's  eyes. 
/  The  books  came  from  a  man  named  Reinwald,  who 
was  in  charge  of  the  ducal  library  at  Meiningen  and 
to  whom  Schiller,  foreseeing  his  own  need,  had  made 
haste  to  introduce  himself  Reinwald  was  some  twenty- 
two  years  older  than  Schiller,  a  bit  of  a  poet  and  a  man 
of  some  literary  ambition ;  but  he  had  not  got  on  well 
in  the  world.  It  was  fated  that  he  should  marry 
Christophine  Schiller,  become  peevish  and  sour  in  the 
course  of  time  and  lose  the  respect  of  his  brother-in- 
law.  For  the  present,  however,  he  proved  a  very 
useful  friend ;  for  he  not  only  executed  orders  for  books 
and  tobacco  (Schiller  had  learned  to  smoke  and  take 
snuff),  but  he  served  as  general  intermediary  between 
the  mysterious  Dr.  Ritter  and  the  outside  world. 
Schiller's  nature  craved  friendship,  and  his  imagination 
easily  endowed  Reinwald  with  the  qualities  of  an  ideal 
companion  of  the  soul.  After  a  while  we  find  him 
writing  in  such  a  strain  as  this: 

Your  visit  the  day  before  yesterday  produced  a  glorious  effect. 
I  feel  my  spirits  renewed  and  a  warmer  life  courses  through  all 
my  nerves.  My  situation  in  this  solitude  has  drawn  upon  my 
soul  the  fate  of  stagnant  water,  which  becomes  foul  unless  it  is 
stirred  up  a  little  now  and  then.  And  I  too  hope  to  become 
necessary  to  your  heart.* 

1  Letter  of  March,  1783  ;  in  "Schillers  Briefe  ",  editW  by  Jonas,  Vol. 
I,  page  loi. 


Relations  with  Outside  World  103 

As  for  Reinwald,  he  had  long  since  passed  the 
effusive  age,  but  it  pleased  him  to  receive  the  younger 
man's  confidence.  He  wrote  in  his  diary:  *  To-day 
Schiller  opened  his  heart  to  me, — a  youth  who  has 
already  been  through  the  school  of  life, — and  I  found 
him  worthy  to  be  called  my  friend.  I  do  not  believe 
that  I  have  given  my  confidence  to  an  unworthy  man. 
He  has  an  extraordinary  mind  and  I  believe  that 
Germany  will  some  day  name  his  name  with  pride. ' — 
Which  was  not  bad  guessing  in  its  way. 

Excepting  Reinwald  and  the  villagers  Schiller  saw 
at  first  but  little  of  his  fellow-mortals.  Both  on  his 
own  account  and  for  the  sake  of  Frau  von  Wolzogen 
he  wished  that  the  persons  who  saw  him  should  not 
know  who  he  was.  So  he  continued  to  scatter  false 
reports  with  a  liberal  hand :  he  had  gone  to  Hannover, 
was  going  to  London,  to  America,  and  so  forth.  In 
the  mean  time,  with  no  thought  of  leaving  his  nest  at 
Bauerbach,  he  devoted  himself  to  his  work.  For  the 
first  time  in  his  life  he  was  the  master  of  his  own 
movements;  he  had  a  chance  to  collect  himself,  to 
browse  among  his  books,  to  meditate  and  to  dream. 
And  as  for  mankind  in  general,  he  felt  that  he  had  no 
cause  to  love  it.  '  With  the  warmest  feeling  ',  so  he 
wrote  after  a  time,  when  the  first  bitterness  had  passed 
away,  *  I  had  embraced  half  the  world  and  found  at 
last  that  I  had  in  my  arms  a  cold  lump  of  ice. '  ^ 
Withal  the  demands  of  work  were  imperious.  He  had 
risked  everything  upon  his  chances  of  literary  success 
and  it  was  necessary  to  win.  He  had  broken  for  good 
and  all  with  the  Duke  of  Wiirttemberg  and  there  was 

1  Letter  of  Jan.  4,  1783,  to  Frau  von  Wolzogen. 


I04  The  Fugitive  in  Hiding 

nothing  to  be  hoped  for  in  that  quarter.  At  the  same 
time, — and  the  fact  is  characteristic  of  his  large- 
mindedness, — he  resolved  not  to  air  his  personal  griev- 
ance. To  Frau  von  Wolzogen,  who  had  been 
admonishing  him  never  to  forget  his  debt  to  the 
Stuttgart  Academy,  he  wrote :  *  However  it  may  be 
with  regard  to  that,  you  have  my  word  that  I  will 
never  belittle  the  Duke  of  Wiirttemberg. ' 

Toward  the  end  of  December  the  wintry  dullness  of 
his  Bauerbach  cottage  was  brightened  by  the  arrival  of 
its  owner  and  her  daughter.  Lotte  von  Wolzogen  was 
a  blond  school-girl  who  had  not  yet  passed  her  seven- 
teenth birthday.  The  records  do  not  credit  her  with 
exceptional  beauty,  but  she  was  sufficiently  good- 
looking  and  her  demure  girlish  innocence  appeared  to 
Schiller  very  lovable.  Not  that  his  plight  was  at  all 
desperate ;  he  hardly  knew  his  own  mind  and  was  in 
no  position  to  make  love  to  any  maiden,  least  of  all  to 
one  with  that  menacing  von  in  her  name.  Still  he 
liked  Fraulein  Lotte  very  much,  and  the  tenderness 
which  now  began  to  manifest  itself  in  his  letters  to  the 
mother  must  be  credited  in  part  to  the  daughter. 
Were  this  not  so  we  could  hardly  account  for  such 
expressions  as  these,  which  are  contained  in  a  letter 
written  after  the  ladies  had  left  Bauerbach  for  a  short 
sojourn  in  the  neighboring  Waldorf:  *  Since  your 
absence  I  am  stolen  from  myself.  To  feel  a  great  and 
lively  rapture  is  like  looking  at  the  sun ;  it  is  still  before 
you  long  after  you  have  turned  away  your  face,  and 
the  eye  is  blinded  to  all  weaker  rays.  But  I  shall  take 
great  care  not  to  extinguish  this  agreeable  illusion.' 
And  again  after  they  had  left  the  Meiningen  region  for 


Literary  Projects  105 

Stuttgart,  with  a  promise  to  return  in  May :  *  Dearest 
friend — a  week  behind  me  without  you.  So  there  is 
one  of  the  fourteen  got  rid  of.  I  could  wish  that  time 
would  put  on  its  utmost  speed  until  May,  so  as  to  move 
thereafter  so  much  the  more  slowly. ' 

Such  flutterings  of  the  heart  were  not  altogether 
favorable  to  that  austere  program  of  literary  industry 
which  the  ambitious  young  dramatist  had  set  for  him- 
self. When  a  man  is  in  love  other  things  seem  more 
or  less  negligible,  and  it  takes  resolution  to  steer  a  firm 
course.  Schiller  Was  resolute — by  spells.  In  the  first 
list  of  books  ordered  from  Meiningen  we  find  noted, 
along  with  works  of  Shakspere,  Robertson,  Hume  and 
Lessing,  'that  part  of  the  Abbe  St.  Real's  works 
which  contains  the  history  of  Don  Carlos  of  Spain.' 
From  this  we  see  that  a  second  historical  drama  was 
already  under  way.      At    first,   however,    it  was    not 

*  Don   Carlos  '   that  claimed  the  most  attention,  but 

*  Louise  Miller  *,  which  had  made  considerable  progress 
in  Oggersheim.  By  January  14,  1783,  Schiller  was 
able  to  pronounce  the  new  play  finished,  though  his 
letters  show  that  the  revision  occupied  him  some  time 
longer.  Meanwhile  we  hear  of  other  dramatic  projects, 
— a  '  Maria  Stuart '  and  a  *  Friedrich  Imhof ',  whatever 
this  last  may  have  been.  Nothing  is  known  of  it  save 
that  it  was  to  deal  with  Jesuitical  intrigue,  the  Inquisi- 
tion, religious  fanaticism,  the  history  of  the  Bastille, 
and  the  passion  for  gambling.^  By  the  end  of  March 
he  had  decided,  after  long  vacillation  between  these 
two  themes,  to  drop  both  of  them  and  proceed  with 

*  Don  Carlos'. 

1  Undated  letter  of  March,  1783;  "  Schillers  Briefe  ",  I,  loi.        : 


io6  The  Fugitive  in  Hiding 

He  began  in  prose,  identifying  himself  completely 
with  his  hero  and  writing  with  joyous  enthusiasm.  A 
letter  of  April  14  to  Reinwald  deals  at  length  with  love 
and  friendship  and  their  relation  to  poetic  creation. 
All  love,  we  read,  is  at  bottom  love  of  ourselves.  We 
see  in  the  beloved  person  the  sundered  elements  of  our 
own  being,  and  the  soul  yearns  to  perfect  itself  in  the 
process  of  reunion.  Thus  love  and  friendship  are  of 
the  nature  of  poetic  imagination, — the  waking  into  life 
of  a  pleasing  illusion.  Wherefore  the  poet  must  love 
his  characters.  He  must  not  be  the  painter  of  his  hero, 
but  rather  his  hero's  sweetheart  or  bosom  friend. 
Then  he  makes  the  application  to  Don  Carlos  in  these 
words : 

I  must  confess  to  you  that  in  a  sense  he  takes  the  place  of  my 
sweetheart.  I  carry  him  in  my  heart, — ich  schwarme  mit  ihm 
durch  die  Gegend  um.  .  .  .  He  shall  have  the  soul  of  Shak- 
spere's  Hamlet,  the  blood  and  nerves  of  Leisewitz's  Julius,  and 
his  pulse  from  me.  Besides  that  I  shall  make  it  my  duty  m  this 
play,  in  my  picture  of  the  Inquisition,  to  avenge  outraged  man- 
kind .  .  .  and  pierce  to  the  heart  a  sort  of  men  whom  the 
dagger  of  tragedy  has  hitherto  only  grazed. 

But  the  '  bosom  friend  '  of  Don  Carlos  soon  had  his 
thoughts  pulled  in  other  directions.  In  the  first  place 
there  came,  very  unexpectedly,  a  sugary  letter  from 
Dalberg.  What  led  him  to  make  fresh  overtures  to  the 
man  whom,  a  few  months  before,  he  had  treated  so 
shabbily,  is  not  difficult  to  make  out.  He  had  become 
convinced  that  there  was  after  all  nothing  to  be  feared 
from  the  Duke  of  Wiirttemberg.  Moreover,  since 
the  peremptory  rejection  of  *  Fiesco  '  the  Mannheim 
theater  had  been  doing  a  very  poor  business.  What 
more  natural  than  that  the  shrewd  intendant,  with  an 


Friendly  Advances  from  Dalberg         107 

eye  to  better  houses,  should  bethink  him  of  the  pen 
that  had  written  '  The  Robbers  '  ?  From  Schwan  and 
from  Streicher,  who  had  remained  in  Mannheim,  he 
knew  of  Schiller's  address  and  occupation.  So  he 
wrote  him  a  gracious  letter,  inquiring  after  his  welfare 
and  expressing  particular  interest  in  the  new  play.  It 
was  now  Schiller's  turn  to  be  foxy.  He  replied  that 
he  was  very  well,  and  that  as  for  the  play,  *  Louise 
Miller  ',  it  was  a  tragedy  with  a  copious  admixture  of 
satirical  and  comic  elements  that  would  probably 
render  it  quite  unfit  for  the  stage.  Dalberg  replied  that 
the  specified  defects  were  merits, — he  would  like  to  see 
the  manuscript.  The  upshot  of  the  correspondence 
was  that  Schiller,  who  had  been  negotiating  with  a 
Leipzig  publisher  but  had  been  unable  to  make  an 
acceptable  bargain  for  the  publication  of  '  Louise 
Miller  ',  now  determined  to  revise  it  for  the  stage  and 
meet  the  views  of  Dalberg  if  possible.  So  about  the 
middle  of  April  he  laid  aside  '  Don  Carlos  '  and,  for 
the  third  time  in  his  life,  devoted  himself  to  the  irksome 
task  of  converting  a  literary  drama  into  a  stage-play. 
On  the  3rd  of  May  he  wrote  to  Reinwald : 

My  L.  M.  drives  me  out  of  bed  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
Here  I  sit  now,  sharpening  pens  and  chewing  thoughts.  It  is 
certain  and  true  that  compulsion  clips  the  wings  of  the  spirit. 
To  write  with  such  solicitude  for  the  theater,  so  hastily  because  I 
am  pressed  for  time,  and  yet  without  fault,  is  an  art.  But  I  feel 
that  my  *  Louise '  is  a  gainer.  .  .  .  My  Lady  [Lady  Milford  in 
the  play]  interests  me  almost  as  much  as  my  Dulcinea  in  Stutt- 
gart [Lotte  von  Wolzogen]. 

Ere  the  revision  of  the  new  tragedy  was  finished 
Dulcinea  herself  arrived   in   Bauerbach;    an   event  to 


io8  The  Fugitive  in  Hiding 

which  Schiller  had  looked  forward  with  joyous  palpita- 
tions and  anxious  forebodings.  For  back  in  March 
Frau  von  Wolzogen  had  written  him  that  she  and  her 
daughter  would  be  accompanied  on  their  northward 
journey  by  a  certain  Herr  Winkelmann,  a  friend  of  the 
family.  Schiller  at  once  divined  the  approach  of  a 
rival  and  wrote  in  great  agitation  that  he  would  go  to 
Berlin  if  Winkelmann  came.  In  justification  of  his 
threat  he  made  the  diaphanous  plea  that  his  incognito 
was  of  the  utmost  importance  to  him,  and  that  the 
inquisitive  Winkelmann  (whom  he  had  known  at  the 
academy)  would  be  sure  to  blab.  To  this  Frau  von 
Wolzogen  sent  some  sort  of  soothing  reply,  hinting  at 
the  same  time  that  she,  the  mother,  would  not  interfere 
with  her  daughter's  choice.  So  Schiller  resolved  to 
stand  his  ground.  The  ladies  arrived  in  the  latter  part 
of  May  and  soon  thereafter  he  was  given  to  understand 
that  Lotte's  affections  were  fixed  upon  the  other  man. 
There  was  nothing  for  him  now  but  the  role  of  lofty 
resignation.  To  his  former  schoolmate,  Wilhelm  von 
Wolzogen,  he  wrote  as  follows; 

You  have  commended  to  me  your  Lotte,  whom  I  know  com- 
pletely. I  thank  you  for  the  great  proof  of  your  love.  .  .  . 
Believe  me,  my  best  of  friends,  I  envy  you  this  amiable  sister. 
Still  just  as  if  from  the  hands  of  the  Creator,  innocent,  the  fair- 
est, tenderest,  most  sensitive  soul,  and  not  yet  a  breath  of  the  gen- 
eral corruption  on  the  bright  mirror  of  her  nature, — thus  I  know 
your  Lotte,  and  woe  to  him  who  brings  a  cloud  over  this  inno- 
cent soul !  .  .  .  Your  mother  has  made  me  a  confidant  in  a 
matter  that  may  decide  the  fate  of  your  Lotte  and  has  told  me 
how  you  feel  upon  the  subject.  [It  appears  that  Wilhelm  disliked 
the  young  man.]  I  know  Herr  W — n  and  .  .  .  believe  me,  he  is 
not  unworthy  of  your  sister.  ...  I  really  esteem  him,  though  I 


Flutterings  of  the  Heart  109 

cannot  at  present  be  called  his  friend.  He  loves  your  Lotte  and 
I  know  he  loves  her  like  a  noble  man,  and  your  Lotte  loves  him 
like  a  girl  that  loves  for  the  first  time. 

But  the  foolish  dreams  were  not  so  easily  to  be  given 
their  quietus,  especially  when  he  discovered  that  Lotte 
was  only  half  in  love  with  Winkelmann  after  all.  Then 
there  seemed  hope  for  him  and  he  surrendered  himself 
freely  to  the  intoxication  of  his  little  summer  romance. 
What  were  the  world  and  a  poet's  fame  in  comparison 
with  happiness  ?  Still  he  did  not  declare  himself. 
He  often  called  Frau  von  Wolzogen  'mother',  and 
averred  in  letters  that  no  son  could  love  her  better. 
Probably  a  word  from  her  might  have  led  to  an  engage- 
ment. But  the  word  was  not  spoken.  She  was  a 
sensible  lady,  who  knew  how  to  look  into  the  future 
and  to  guard  the  welfare  both  of  her  daughter  and  of 
her  protege.  She  saw  that  if  he  was  to  make  his  way 
in  the  world  as  a  dramatist  he  must  return  to  the  world ; 
a  prolongation  of  the  Bauerbach  idyl  could  lead  to 
nothing  but  disappointment  and  unhappiness.  Besides, 
his  incognito  had  now  become  only  a  conventional 
fiction ;  everybody  knew  who  he  was. 

One  day,  accordingly,  as  they  were  walking  to- 
gether, she  suggested  that  he  pay  a  visit  to  Mannheim 
and  see  what  could  be  done  with  Dalberg.  He  re- 
solved to  follow  her  advice.  Late  in  July  he  set  out, 
promising  himself  and  her  a  speedy  return.  But  it 
was  not  so  to  be.  Becoming  absorbed  in  the  business 
of  a  new  career  he  continued,  indeed,  to  think  of  her 
affectionately  and  to  write  to  her,  but  at  ever-increas- 
ing intervals;  and  after  a  few  months  Bauerbach  and 
the  Wolzogens  were  only  a  delightful  memory.      It  is 


no  The  Fugitive  in  Hiding 

true  that  after  the  lapse  of  nearly  a  year  he  one  day 
took  it  into  his  head  to  suggest  to  the  mother  that  she 
take  him  for  a  son-in-law.  But  the  wooing  went  no 
further.  After  all  he  had  not  really  been  in  love  with 
Lotte  in  particular  so  much  as  with  an  ideal  of  domestic 
bliss. 

Shortly  before  his  departure  from  Bauerbach  there 
had  been  some  talk  of  his  accompanying  Reinwald  on 
a  contemplated  journey  to  Weimar,  where  he  might 
make  the  acquaintance  of  Karl  August,  Goethe  and 
Wieland.  In  his  excellent  little  book  upon  Schiller, 
Streicher  expresses  regret  that  his  friend  had  not  acted 
upon  this  suggestion  instead  of  following  the  *  siren 
voice  '  that  led  to  the  Palatinate.  But  it  is  difficult  to 
sympathize  with  this  regret.  He  was  not  yet  ripe  for 
the  role  that  fate  held  in  store  for  him  in  Thiiringen. 
His  education  was  to  proceed  yet  a  while  longer  by  the 
process  of  flaying.  He  was  to  suffer  and  grow  strong ; 
to  battle  further  with  the  goblins  of  despair;  to  tread 
the  quicksands  of  adversity  and  fight  his  way  through 
to  a  firm  footing  among  the  sons  of  men.  Who  shall 
say  that  it  was  not  better  so  ? 

The  long-cherished  hopes  of  a  connection  with  the 
Mannheim  theater  were  destined  this  time  to  be  ful- 
filled. In  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  Schiller  entered 
into  a  contract  which  assured  him,  for  a  year  at  least, 
a  respectable  status  in  society  and  opened  a  new 
chapter  in  his  life.  Before  we  take  up  that  chapter, 
however,  it  will  be  proper  to  consider  the  new  play 
which  he  had  brought  with  him  as  a  passport  to  Dal- 
berg's  favor.  Thus  far  he  had  called  it  by  the  name 
of  its  heroine,  but  when  it  was  put  upon  the  stage  it 


A  New  Play  Completed  m 

was  rechristened,  at  the  suggestion  of  the  actor  Iffland, 
and  has  ever  since  been  known  as  *  Cabal  and  Love  '. 
The  revision  which  he  had  undertaken,  after  the  re- 
opening of  correspondence  with  Dalberg,  was  even  now 
not  quite  finished ;  so  that  the  final  touches  had  to  be 
given  at  Mannheim.  It  is  probable  that  the  political 
satire,  which  was  based  in  part  upon  veritable  history 
and  contained  transparent  allusions  to  well-known  per- 
sonages, was  more  or  less  toned  down  in  deference  to 
the  wishes  of  Dalberg.  Minor  changes  were  also  made 
at  the  behest  of  the  actors.  But  while  it  was  not  played 
and  not  printed  until  the  spring  of  1784,  it  belongs  in 
its  substance  and  its  spirit,  not  to  the  Mannheim  period 
of  Schiller's  life,  but  to  the  period  which  he  had  spent 
in  hiding.  It  is  a  freeman's  comment  upon  high  life 
as  he  had  known  it.  Scrupulously  enough  Schiller 
kept  the  letter  of  his  promise  not  to  use  his  pen  in 
belittling  the  Duke  of  Wiirttemberg.  But  the  Wirt- 
schaft  in  Stuttgart  was  fair  game,  and  there  were  other 
ways  of  masking  a  dramatic  battery  than  to  lay  the 
scene  in  Italy.  In  *  Cabal  and  Love  '  the  reigning 
prince  does  not  appear  upon  the  stage. 


CHAPTER  VI 
Cabal  and  Xove 

Ich  bin  ein  Edelmann — Lasz  doch  sehen,  ob  mein  Adelbrief 
alter  ist  als  der  Risz  zum  unendlichen  Weltall ;  oder  mein  Wap- 
pen  gultiger  ist  als  die  Handschrift  des  Himmels  in  Louisens 
Augen :  Dieses  Weib  ist  fiir  diesen  Mann. — '  Cabal  and  Love  \ 

In  *  Cabal  and  Love  '  Schiller  found  again,  as  he 
had  previously  found  in  '  The  Robbers  ',  a  thoroughly 
congenial  theme.  More  properly  the  theme  found 
him,  took  possession  of  him  and  would  not  let  him  go, 
until  the  inner  tumult  had  subsided  and  German  litera- 
ture had  been  enriched  with  its  most  telling  tragedy  of 
the  social  conflict.  '  Fiesco  '  had  proved  a  disappoint- 
ment; he  had  not  been  able  to  bring  himself  into  perfect 
sympathy  with  the  subject,  and  at  the  best  his  Italian 
conspiracy  was  a  far-away  matter.  Now  he  set  foot 
again  upon  his  native  heath  and  all  went  better.  In 
spite  of  certain  defects  which  led  him  to  speak  of  it 
later  as  rather  badly  designed,  '  Cabal  and  Love  '  must 
be  pronounced  the  nipst  artistic  and  the  most  interest- 
ing of  his  early  plays. 

It  is  the  tragedy  of  two  lovers,  an  honorable  aristo- 
crat and  a  girl  of  humble  birth,  who  are  done  to  death 
through  a  vile  intrigue  which  is  dictated  by  the  exigen- 
cies of  an  infamous  political  regime.  By  means  of  a 
compromising  letter,  which  is  not  forged  but  extorted^ 

xia 


Beginnings  of  Bourgeois  Tragedy 


113 


under  duress,  the  lover  is  made  to  suspect  his  sweet- 
heart's fidelity;  and  she,  though  innocent,  is  prevented 
by  scruples  of  conscience  from  undeceiving  him.  In  a 
jealous  fury  he  gives  her  poison  and  then  partakes  of 
it  himself  The  mischief  is  wrought  not  so  much  by 
the  wickedness  of  the  great,  albeit  that  comes  in  for  a 
share  of  the  responsibility,  as  by  the  obstinate  class  _ 
prejudice,  amounting  to  a  tragic  superstition,  of  the 
heroine  and  her  father.  Many  of  the  details  were  taken 
over  by  Schiller  from  his  predecessors ;  but  he  so  im- 
proved upon  them,  so  vitalized  the  familiar  conflicts 
and  situations,  and  threw  into  his  work  such  a  power 
of  genuine  pathos,  caught  from  the  pathos  of  real  life, 
that  *  Cabal  and  Love  '  still  stands  out  as  a  notable 
document  of  the  revolutionary  epoch.  The  epoch  pro- 
duced many  bourgeois  tragedies,  but  Schiller's  is  much 
the  best  of  them  all.  Before  we  look  at  it  more  closely 
it  will  be  worth  while  to  glance  at  the  history  of  the 
type  in  Germany. 

The  tragedy  of  middle-class  life  first  took  root,  as  is 
well  known,  in  England.  It  was  in  1732  that  Lillo^ 
brought  upon  the  Drury  Lane  stage  his  acted  tale  of 
George  Barn  well, 'the  London  'prentice  who  is  beguiled 
by  a  harlot,  robs  his  master,  kills  his  uncle  and  ends  his 
career  on  the  gallows,  to  the  great  grief  of  the  doting 
Maria,  his  master's  daughter.  The  prologue  tells  how 
the  experiment  was  expected  to  strike  the  public  of 
that  day: 

The  Tragic  Muse  sublime  delights  to  show 
Princes  distrest  and  scenes  of  royal  woe  ; 
In  awful  pomp  majestic  to  relate 
The  fall  of  nations  or  some  hero's  fate  ; 


XI4  Cabal  and  Love 

That  scepter'd  chiets  may  by  example  know 
The  strange  vicissitudes  of  things  below.  .  .  . 
Upon  our  stage  indeed,  with  wished  success, 
You've  sometimes  seen  her  in  a  humbler  dress, 
Great  only  in  distress.     When  she  complains. 
In  Southern's,  Rowe's,  or  Otway's  moving  strains, 
The  brilliant  drops  that  fall  from  each  bright  eye 
The  absent  pomp  with  brighter  gems  supply. 
Forgive  us  then  if  we  attempt  to  show 
In  artless  strains  a  tale  of  private  woe. 

So  it  appears  that  *  Barnwell '  was  something"  new, 
yet  not  entirely  new.  The  stately  tragedy  of  solemn 
edification,  at  which  no  one  was  expected  to  weep,  had 
already  yielded  a  part  of  its  sovereignty  to  the  tragedy 
of  distress.  It  occurred  to  Lillo  that  tears  could  be 
drawn  for  the  woes  of  the  middle  class,  which  had  been 
looked  upon  as  suitable  only  for  comedy.  The  event 
proved  that  he  had  reckoned  well :  the  *  *  brilliant 
drops"  fell  copiously,  the  innovation  crossed  the 
Channel,  and  soon  the  bourgeois  tragedy, —whence  by 
an  easy  differentiation  the  lacrimose,  pathetic,  or 
serious  comedy, — had  entered  upon  its  European  career. 
The  first  German  example  was  '  Miss  Sara^Samg- 
son  ',  written  in  1755,  wherein  the  daughter  of  a  fond 
English  squire^  is  lured  away  from  her  home,  like 
Clarissa  Harlowe,  by  the  profligate  Mellefont,  who 
promises  to  marry  her.  The  pair  take  lodgings  at  a 
low  London  inn,  where  Mellefont  finds  pretexts  for 
delaying  the  marriage  ceremony.  Presently  his  former 
mistress,  Marwood,  appears — a  proud  and  passionate 
woman  of  sin.  She  claims  him  as  the  mother  of  his 
child,  but  having  now  found  out  what  true  love  is  he 
spurns   her.      Bitter   interviews   follow,    with   spiteful 


Lessing^s  Experiment  115 

recriminations  and  awful  threats.  Marwood  tells  her 
story  to  Sara  and  finally  ends  the  tension  by  poisoning 
her,  whereupon  Mellefont  commits  suicide.  In  writing 
this  play  Lessing  was  in  no  way  concerned  with  any 
social  question.  He  constituted  himself  the  champion 
of  the  bourgeoisie  before  the  tribunal  of  Melpomene, 
but  not  before  the  conscience  of  mankind.  The  woes 
of  hero  and  heroine  are  in  no  way  related  to  class 
prejudice  or  to  the  great  democratic  upheaval  of  the 
century.  Lessing 's  atmosphere  is  the  moral  and  senti- 
mental atmosphere  of  Richardson,  though  his  literary 
power  is  incomparably  greater. 

'  Miss  Sara  Sampson  '  did  not  long  hold  the  stage, 
but  its  influence  is  discernible  in  subsequent  develop- 
ments. The  '  man  between  two  women  '  became  a 
regular  feature  of  the  new  domestic  tragedy.  In  play 
after  play  we  find  a  soulful,  clinging,  romantic  creature 
— usually  the  title-heroine — set  over  against  a  full- 
blooded  rival  whose  ways  are  ways  of  wantonness. 
Lessing  himself  repeated  the  group  in  *  Emilia  Galgtti'j^ 
which  in  its  turn  became  the  mother  of  a  new  brood. 
The  tragedy  of  lawless  passion  led  by  an  easy  step  to 
the  tragedy  of  social  conflict,  which  portrayed  the 
depravity  of  princes  and  nobles  in  their  relation  to  the 
common  people,  or  called  upon  mankind  to  weep  for 
the  woes  of  lovers  separated  by  the  b^irriers  of  rank. 
In  Germany  the  species  was  very  timely.  Nowhere  ■ 
else  in  Europe  had  the  nobility  so  little  to  be  proud  of, 
and  nowhere  else  was  the  pride  of  birth  so  stupidly 
intolerant.  That  fruitful  theme  of  earlier  and  later 
poets,  the  love  of  nobleman  for  maid  of  low  degree, 
had  been  lost  in  the  age  of  gallantry,  save  in  lubricious 


c 


ii6  Cabal  and  Love 

tales  of  intrigue  and  seduction.  The  appalling  dis- 
soluteness which  characterized  the  French  court  during 
the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  was  duly- 
copied  by  the  princelings  of  Germany,  had  poisoned 
the  minds  of  high  and  low  alike  and  led  to  a  state  of 
affairs  in  which  there  was  little  room  for  a  noble  or  even 
a  serious  conception  of  love.  Love  was  understoodtQ. 
be  concupiscence,.  If  an  aristocrat  stooped  to  a  bour- 
geois girl,  it  was  his  affair  and  at  the  worst  only  an 
aberration  of  taste ;  her  fate  was  of  no  importance. 

When  the  inevitable  reaction  set  in,  it  took  the  form 
of  a  debauch  of  sentimentalism.  The  poetry  of  real 
passion  came  back  into  literature  and  people  wept  for 
n  joy  to  find  that  they  had  hearts.  Love  was  no  longer 
a  frivolous  game  played  for  the  gratification  of  lust,  but 
a  divine  rapture  of  fathomless  and  ineffable  import.  It 
was  now  the  era  of  the  beautiful  soul,  of  tender  senti- 
ment, of  virtuous  transports  and  of  endless  talk  about 
all  these  things.  Love  being  natural, — a  part  of  that 
nature  to  which  the  world  was  now  resolved  to  return, 
— ^it  was  sacred,  and  superior  to  all  human  conventions. 
It  belonged  to  the  sphere  of  the  rights  of  man.  Its 
enemy  was  everywhere  the  corrupt  heart  and  the 
worldly,  calculating  mind.  Fortunately  the  new  ecstasy 
associated  itself  with  a  strong  enthusiasm  for  the  sim- 
plification of  life ;  for  the  poetry  of  nature  and  of  rustic 
employments ;  for  the  sweetness  of  domestic  affection. 
In  Germany  public  sentiment  had  already  been  pre- 
pared for  a  certain  idealization  of  the  bourgeoisie. 
Enlightened  rulers  and  publicists,  here  and  there,  were 
coming  to  feel  that  a  virtuous  yeomanry  was  the  sure 
foundation  of  a  state's  welfare.     Countless   idyls  and 


Rousseau  and  the  Social  Conflict        117 

pastorals  and  moralizing  romances  had  thrown  a  nimbus 
of  poetry  about  the  simple  virtues  and  humble  employ- 
ments of  the  poor,  and  taught  people  to  contrast  these 
things  with  the  corruption  and  artificiality  of  courts  and 
cities.  It  was,  however,  the  passionate  eloquence  of^ 
Rousseau  which  first  gave  to  this  contrast  a  revolu- 
tionary significance,  and  it  was  Rousseau  who  first 
stirred  the  reading  world  with  a  woeful  tale  of  lovers 
separated  by  the  prejudices  of  caste. 

In  *  The  New  Heloise  'it  is  the  lady  who  is  the 
aristocrat.  Julie  d'Etange,  the  daughter  of  a  baron, 
wishes  to  marry  the  untitled  St.  Preux,  to  whom  in  a 
transport  of  passion  she  has  yielded  up  her  honor. 
But  the  Baron  d'Etange  is  an  implacable  stickler  for 
rank  and  she  is  a  dutiful  daughter;  whence  her  mar- 
riage to  the  elderly  infidel,  Wolmar,  and  the  well- 
known  moral  ending  of  the  novel.  The  thought  that 
concerns  us  here  is  best  expressed  by  the  enlightened 
English  peer.  Lord  B.,  who  thus  expostulates  with 
Baron  d'Etange: 

Let  us  judge  of  the  past  by  the  present ;  for  two  or  three 
citizens  who  win  distinction  by  honest  means,  a  thousand  knaves 
every  day  get  their  families  ennobled.  But  to  what  end  serves 
that  nobility  of  which  their  descendants  are  so  proud,  unless  it 
be  to  prove  the  robberies  and  infamy  of  their  ancestor  ?  There 
are,  I  confess,  a  great  number  of  bad  men  among  the  common 
people ;  but  the  odds  are  always  twenty  to  one  against  a  gentle- 
man that  he  is  descended  from  a  scoundrel.  ...  In  what  con- 
sists then  the  honor  of  that  nobility  of  which  you  are  so  proud  ? 
How  does  it  affect  the  glory  of  one's  country  or  the  good  of 
mankind  ?  A  mortal  enemy  to  liberty  and  the  laws,  what  did 
it  ever  produce,  in  the  most  of  those  countries  where  it  has 
flourished,  but  the  power  of  tyranny  and  the  oppression  of  the 


ii8  Cabal  and  Love 

people  ?     Will  you  presume  to  boast,  in  a  republic,  of  a  rank 
^     that  is  destructive  to  virtue  and    humanity  ?     Of  a    rank   thftt^ 
V^  ^  makes  its  boast  of  slavery  and  wherein  men  blush  to  be  mei^»  y 

This  is  of  course  the  language  of  passion  and  preju- 
dice (it  would  not  else  be  Rousseau),  but  there  was 
enough  of  truth  in  it,  as  in  the  case  of  Rousseau's  other 
fervors,  to  rouse  the  revolutionary  spirit.  German 
literature  began  to  teem  with  novels  and  plays  which 
exhibit  the  sufferings  of  some  untitled  hero  or  heroine 
at  the  hands  of  a  vicious  aristocracy.  The  theme  is 
touched  upon  in  *  Werther  ',  but  without  becoming  an 
important  issue.  It  appears  in  Wagner's  '  InfanticidfiLl, 
wherein  a  butcher's  daughter,  Evchen  Humbrecht,  is 
violated  by  a  titled  officer,  runs  away  from  home  in  her 
shame,  kills  her  child  and  is  finally  found  by  the 
repentant  author  of  her  disgrace.  We  meet  it  again 
in  Lenz's  '  Private  Tutor  ',  the  tragedy  of  a  GerrnaU-. 
St.  Preux  who  falls  in  love  with  his  titled  pupil  and 
dishonors  her,  with  the  result  that  she  too  runs  away 
from  home  and  tries  to  commit  suicide,  while  her  lover 
in  his  chagrin  emasculates  himself.  These  are  grotesque 
tragedies,  not  devoid  of  literary  power,  but  devoid  of 
y  high  sentiment  and  saturated  with  a  woeful  vulgarity. 
We  cannot  wonder  that  the  high-minded  Schiller  should 
have  condemned  Wagner's  malodorous  play  as  a 
mediocre  performance.  His  incentive  came  rather  from 
Gemmingen's  *  Head  of  the  House  ',  which  in  turn 
carries  us  back  to  Diderot. 

In  the  hands   of  Diderot,  democrat,  moralist   and. 
apostle  of  the  genre  honnete^  it  was  natural  that  the 
drama  of  class  conflict   should  end   happily.     In  his 

1  <  The  New  Heloise ',  Part  I,  letter  62. 


Diderot^s  Father  of  the  Family  119 

*  Father  of  the  Family*,  written  in  1758  and  first 
played  in  1 761,  the  contrast  of  high  and  low  is  vividly 
portrayed,  but  without  bitterness.  The  aristocratic 
St.  Albin  d'Orbisson  falls  in  love  with  a  poor  girl  from 
the  country  who  lives  in  an  attic  and  earns  her  own 
living.  Sophie's  beauty  and  virtue  make  a  man  of  him 
and  he  wishes  to  marry  her,  but  is  opposed  by  his 
kind-hearted,  querulous  father,  who  argues  the  case 
with  him  at  great  length,  confronting  passion  with 
prudential  common-sense.  St.  Albin  is  also  opposed 
by  his  rich  uncle,  the  Commandeur,  from  whom  he  has 
prospects.  The  uncle  plots  to  get  Sophie  away  by 
having  her  arrested,  but  is  baffled  by  a  counter-intrigue. 
Stormy  scenes  follow  the  revelation,  and  in  the  end  it 
appears  that  Sophie  is  not  a  plebeian  maiden  at  all,  but 
the  niece  of  the  purse-proud  Commandeur,  who  has 
neglected  his  poor  relations.  With  the  literary  and 
dramatic  qualities  of  this  play,  its  absence  of  humor 
and  of  sparkling  dialogue,  its  tedious  moralizing,  its. 
hollow  pathos  and  its  general  relation  to  Diderot's 
dramatic  theory,  we  are  not  here  directly  concerned. 
What  is  important  to  observe  is  that,  as  a  contribution 
to  the  burning  social  question,  its  point  is  blunted  by 
the  fact  that  its  heroine  is  not  what  she  seems  to  be. 
The  whole  matter  reduces  to  a  brief  misunderstanding 
in  an  aristocratic  family.  Villainy  is  thwarted,  true  l 
love  comes  into  its  own,  and  the  foundations  of  society  / 
remain  as  they  were. 

Diderot's  *  Father  of  the  Family  '  enjoyed  a  short 
vogue  in  France  and  Italy  and  met  with  considerable 
favor  in  Germany.  Most  noteworthy  among  minor 
German  plays  that  were  influenced  by  it  is  Gemmin- 


I20  Cabal  and  Love 

gen's  '  Head  of  the  House'.  Gemmingen  was  himself 
""an  aristocrat,  a  baron  by  title,  who  was  born  in  1755. 
After  studying  law  he  settled  in  Mannheim,  where  he 
became  deeply  interested  in  the  drama,  so  that  in  1778 
he  was  given  the  position  of  dramatist  to  the  newly 
established  'national  theater'.  Two  years  later  he 
^^pn^rought  out  his  *  Head  of  the  House  '  with  great  suc- 
cess. The  piece  is  a  pendant  of  Diderot's,  but  by  no^ 
means  a  slavish  imitation. 

Gemmingen 's  *  head  of  the  house  '  is  an  upright 
German  nobleman  of  the  admirable  sort,  who  returns 
home  after  a  long  absence  to  find  the  affairs  of 
his  family  very  much  deranged.  His  eldest  son, 
Karl,  has  fallen  madly  in  love  with  Lotte  Wehrmann, 
the  daughter  of  an  impecunious  artist,  gotten  her 
with  child,  and  promised  to  marry  her  when  his  father 
shall  have  returned  and  given  his  consent.  The 
younger  son,  Ferdinand,  an  officer,  has  taken  to 
gaming,  lost  heavily  and  has  a  duel  on  his  hands. 
His  son-in-law,  Monheim,  has  become  infatuated  with 
a  dazzling  widow.  Countess  Amaldi,  grown  cold 
toward  his  wife  Sophie,  and  the  quarreling  pair  are 
eager  for  a  divorce.  The  tangle  is  further  complicated 
by  the  fact  that  Amaldi,  an  excellent  match,  is  in  love 
with  Karl.  The  perplexed  father  sets  at  work  with 
the  tools  of  common  sense  and  rational  argument.  He 
urges  Karl  to  break  with  Lotte  for  his  career's  sake. 
The  irresolute  and  dutiful  Karl  consents,  saying  nothing 
ofLotte's  approaching  motherhood,  and  the  rumor  of 
his  intended  marriage  to  the  countess  is  spread  abroad. 
When  Lotte  hears  it  she  rushes  to  Amaldi  and  wildly 
demands  her  lover  in  the  name  of  her  unborn  child. 


Gemmingcn^s  Head  of  the  House        121 

When  the  father  hears  the  whole  story  he  no  longer 
thinks  of  rank  but  of  honor.  He  bids  Karl  marry  his 
true  love  and  retire  to  the  country,  where,  as  overseer 
of  a  large  estate,  he  will  be  less  encumbered  by  a 
plebeian  wife  than  in  the  career  which  had  been  planned 
for  him.  The  magnanimous  Amaldi  furnishes  the 
bride's  dowry,  the  other  domestic  complications  are 
easily  adjusted  and  all  ends  happily. 

Dramatically  Gemmingen's  play  is  rather  tame, 
though  its  literary  merit  is  considerable.  He  had  a 
fair  measure  of  constructive  skill,  but  very  little  of 
poetic  impulse  or  of  dramatic  verve.  His  best  scenes 
interest  us  more  for  their  good  sense  than  for  any  more 
stirring  qualities.  His  nearest  approach  to  a  strong 
character  is  the  paterfamilias  himself,  who  is  certainly 
much  less  *  *  woolly  and  mawkish  ' '  ^  than  his  pendant 
in  Diderot.  Next  one  may  place  the  artist  Wehrmann. 
Karl  is  a  poor  stick,  Amaldi  is  rather  colorless,  and 
Lotte  would  be  quite  insipid  but  for  her  impending 
motherhood,  on  which  everything  is  made  to  turn. 
Such  as  it  was,  however,  the  play  excited  the  cordial 
admiration  of  Schiller,  who  read  it  soon  after  its  ap- 
pearance. Very  likely  it  may  have  suggested  to  him 
the  thought  of  trying  his  own  hand  upon  a  drama  in 
the  bourgeois  sphere,  but  it  was  not  until  July,  1782, 
— ^just  after  he  had  finished  reading  Wagner's  *  Infanti- 
cide ', — that  the  plan  of  '  Louise  Miller  '  began  to  take 
shape  in  his  mind.  Gemmingen's  poor  artist,  Wehr- 
mann, became  the  poor  fiddler.  Miller,  and  the  daughter 
Lotte  was  rechristened  Louise.  The  aristocratic 
lover,  Gemmingen's  Karl,  was  named  Ferdinand  von 

J  The  adjectives  are  John  Morley's;  "Diderot",  Chap.  VII. 


122  Cabal  and  Love 

Walter,  and  Amaldi  was  converted  into  Lady  Milford. 
One  of  Gemmingen's  subordinate  characters,  the 
foppish  nobleman,  Dromer,  who  goes  about  making 
compliments  to  everybody,  reappears  in  Schiller's  play 
as  the  perfumed  tale-bearer  and  exquisite  ladies*  man, 
Chamberlain  von  Kalb.  The  places  represented  are 
three  in  number  and  the  same  in  both  plays.  Here, 
however,  the  parallel  ends.  Instead  of  Gemmingen's 
high-minded  paterfamilias  we  have  the  rascally  Presi- 
dent von  Walter,  who,  with  his  tool  Wurm,  reminds 
one  of  Lessing's  Prince  and  Marinelli.  And  what  is 
much  more  important,  the  relation  of  the  lovers  is  so 
portrayed  that  we  get  the  pure  poetry  of  passion,  such 
as  it  is,  without  any  tinge  of  grossness. 

In  its  earliest  phase  Schiller's  plan  looked  toward  a 
telling  tragi-comedy  for  the  stage,  with  a  plenty  of 
rough  humor  and  caustic  satire  at  the  expense  of 
*  high-born  fools  and  scoundrels  '.  As  he  worked,  the 
possibilities  of  his  theme  developed.  An  abstract 
— enthusiasmjfoiTthe  rights  of  man  was  kindled  hyhonosL. 
love  of  the  common  people,  and  by  the  lingering  smart 
of  a  personal  wrong,  into  a  holy  zeal  of  vengeance. 
President  Walter  was  painted  in  colors  which  were 
taken  largely  from  the  political  history  and  the  cJironique 
scandaleuse  of  the  Wiirttemberg  court.  As  this  court 
had  its  angel  of  light  in  soiled  garments.  Lady  Milford 

^  was  fitted  out  with  the  benevolent  qualitie's  of  Franziska 
von  Hohenheim;  and  as  the  portrait  grew  in  firmness 
its  author  fell  in  love  with  it,  like  the  young  Goethe 

Vwith  his  Adelheid.  When  he  came  to  depict  the 
jealousy  of  Ferdinand,  he  had  the  advantage  of  a  per- 
sonal acquaintance  with  the  green-eyed  monster.     Thus 


Schifler^s  Debt  to  Predecessors  123 

the  play  was  extracted  from  the  book  of  life,  as  Schiller 
had  been  able  to  read  it,  and  that  accounts  for  its 
vitality.  But  in  his  details  he  is  nowhere  less  original. 
Not  only  in  the  general  conception  of  important  char- 
acters, but  in  particular  scenes,  situations,  motives, 
contrasts  and  forms  of  expression,  we  can  see  the  in- 
fluence of  the  literary  tradition  which  he  inherited. 

To  show  the  exact  nature  and  the  full  extent  of  this 
indebtedness  would  be  a  tedious  undertaking,  which 
would  require  pages  of  quotation  from  works  whose 
chief  interest  now  is  that  they  served  as  quarry  for 
Schiller.  Three  or  four  illustrations  will  suffice.  Our 
play  begins  with  a  scene  which  at  once  recalls  what 
was  originally  the  opening  scene  of  Wagner's  *  Infanti- 
cide '.  In  both  there  is  a  blustering  father, — Lessing's 
Odoardo  reduced  to  the  bourgeois  sphere, — discoursing 
with  his  silly  wife  upon  the  dangers  that  threaten  their 
daughter  from  keeping  aristocratic  company.  In  both 
the  domestic  thunderer  expresses  himself  in  rough, 
strong  language,  and  is  only  made  the  more  furious  by 
his  wife's  efforts  to  allay  his  fears.  In  Wagner's  next 
scene  Magister  Humbrecht  comes  to  woo  Evchen,  just 
as  Schiller's  Wurm  comes  to  woo  Louise,  and  we  hear 
that  the  girl's  head  has  been  turned  by  reading  novels. 
Just  so  Louise,  whose  father  can  scarcely  find  words 
to  express  his  detestation  of  the  young  baron's  infernal, 
belletristic  poison.  When  Wurm  arrives  at  Miller's 
and  asks  for  Louise,  he  is  informed  that  she  has  just 
gone  to  church.  *  Glad  of  that,  glad  of  that ',  he 
replies,  *  I  shall  have  in  her  a  pious  Christian  wife  '. 
Here  is  a  reminiscence  of  the  scene  in  which  Lessing's 
Count  Appiani  exclaims,  on  hearing  that  Emilia  has 


124  Cabal  and  Love 

just  been  at  church :  *  That  is  right ;  I  shall  have  in 
you  a  pious  wife  '.  The  devout  heroine  was  a  hardly- 
less  hackneyed  figure  in  the  dramatic  literature  of  the 
time  than  the  blustering  father  of  whom  Goethe  com- 

f  plained.^  In  Schiller's  Louise  we  have  the  religious 
sentiment  sublimated  into  something  quite  too  seraphic 
for  human  nature's  daily  food.  Her  high-keyed  sense 
of  duty  to  God,  her  natural  filial  piety  and  her  super- 
stitious reverence  for  the  social  order,  combine  to  pro- 
duce in  her  a  curious  distraction  which  is  the  real 
source  of  the  tragic  conflict.  She  feels  that  her  love  is 
holy  but  that  marriage  would  be  sinful;  and  so  she 
hesitates,  responds  to  her  lover's  ardor  with  tremblings 
and  solicitudes,  knows  not  what  to  do,  does  the  foolish 
._  thing  and  atones  tragically  for  her  weakness. 

Not  before  Schiller's  time  had  this  conflict  between 
love  and  filial  duty  been  so  powerfully  depicted,  but  it 
is  found  in  Wagner's  '  Remorse  after  the  Deed  '  (^77i)f 
wherein  a  coachrnan's  daughter,  Friederike  Walz,  is 
loved  by  the  aristocratic  Langen,  who  is  opposed  by 
his  mother.  Langen  goes  to  his  sweetheart,  all  courage 
and  resolution.  He  is  prepared,  like  Leisewitz's  Julius, 
to  defy  his  kin,  renounce  the  lures  of  his  rank  and  flee 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth  with  *  Rikchen  '.  To  which 
she  replies:  'Langen,  you  are  terrible.  To  marry 
with  the  curse  of  parents  is  to  make  one's  whole  pos- 
terity miserable  '.  So  Louise  replies  to  Ferdinand's 
similar  entreaty:   'And  be  followed  by  your  father's 

1  *'  La  premiere  fois  que  je  la  vis,  ce  fut  k  I'^glise", — says  Diderot's 
St.  Albin,  in  recounting  the  beginning  of  his  infatuation  for  Sophie.  So 
with  Faust  and  Margaret,  and  with  Schiller's  beautiful  Greek  lady  in 
*  The  Ghostseer '. 


Further  Influence  of  Predecessors        125 

curse!  A  curse,  thoughtless  man,  which  even  mur- 
derers never  utter  in  vain,  and  which  like  a  ghost  would 
pursue  us  fugitives  mercilessly  from  sea  to  sea. ' 

In  the  sentimental  novel  'Siegwart',  the  heroine, 
Therese,  loves  a  young  squire,  not  for  his  blue  blood, 
but  for  the  nobility  of  his  heart.  Like  Louise  she 
renounces  her  love  for  this  life,  and  bids  him  farewell. 
In  writing  to  him  she  describes  a  scene  between  her 
father  and  his: 

Your  father  came  dashing  into  our  yard  with  two  huntsmen. 

•  Are  you  the ?  '  he  called  up  to  me.     ♦  Is  that  Siegwart  ? 

He's  a  scoundrel,  if  he  knows  it.  He  wants  to  seduce  my  son. 
And  this,  I  suppose,  is  the  nice  creature  (here  he  turned  to  me 
again)  who  has  made  a  fool  of  him.  A  nice  little  animal,  by  my 
soul ! '  .  .  .  My  father,  who  can  show  heat  when  he  is  provoked, 
told  him  to  stop  calling  such  names ;  that  he  was  a  decent  man 
and  I  a  decent  girl. 

Here  we  seem  to  have  the  suggestion  of  the  stirring 
scene  in  which  the  irate  old  fiddler  threatens  to  throw 
President  von  Walter  out  of  doors  for  insulting  Louise. 
It  would  be  very  easy  to  give  further  examples  of 
Schiller's  talent  for  taking  what  suited  his  purpose,  but 
such  philology  is  not  very  profitable.  Afler  all,  what 
one  wishes  to  know  is  not  where  the  architect  got  his 
materials,  but  what  he  made  of  them.  And  what  he^ 
made  was  a  play  abounding  in  admirable  scenes,  but 
ending  in  a  rather  unsatisfactory  manner.  With  even 
less  violence  to  the  inner  logic  of  the  piece  than  was 
necessary  in  the  case  of  *  Fiesco  ',  '  Cabal  and  Love  ' 
_might  have  been  given  a  happy  ending.^  The  whole , 
-tragedy  hangs  by  a  thread  in  the  fifth  act.  Lady 
Milford  has  fled  and  is  no  longer  a  factor  in  the  en- 


126  Cabal  and  Love 

tanglement.  The  wicked  president  has  relented  and 
is  ready  to  yield.  Old  Miller,  released  from  prison, 
returns  to  his  house  and  finds  Louise  brooding  over 
her  purpose  of  suicide.  He  preaches  to  her  upon  the 
sin  of  self-destruction  and  pleads  with  her  to  give  up 
her  aristocratic  lover.  She  promises.  Then  Ferdinand 
comes  and  demands  an  explanation  of  the  fatal  letter. 
A  word  from  her  at  this  point,  a  momentary  acces  oi 
simple  common  sense,  would  undeceive  him  and  end 
the  whole  difficulty.  Of  course  she  must  not  break  her 
oath;  and  one  cannot  blame  her  sweet  simplicity  for 
not  taking  refuge  in  the  maxim  that  an  oath  given 
under  duress  is  not  binding.  But  her  oath  merely 
pledges  her  to  acknowledge  the  letter  as  her  voluntary 
act.  There  is  no  reason  why  she  should  not  solemnly 
assure  Ferdinand  of  her  innocence,  tell  him  that  they 
are  the  victims  of  a  plot  and  send  him  to  his  father  for 
an  explanation.  Nothing  prevents  her  from  speaking 
in  time  the  words  that  she  actually  does  speak  after 
she  has  taken  the  poison,  but  before  she  knows  that  she 
has  taken  it :  *  A  horrible  fatality  has  confused  the  lan- 
guage of  our  hearts.  If  I  might  open  my  mouth,  Walter, 
I  could  tell  you  things',  etc. 

If,  out  of  filial  piety,  Louise  is  minded  to  give  up 
her  lover,  there  is  at  any  rate  no  reason  why  she 
should  wish  him  to  despise  her  forever.  Every  natural 
girlish  instinct  requires  her  to  clear  herself.  That 
she  does  not  do  this,  but  persists  in  a  course  which 
of  all  courses  is  the  most  unnatural, — seeing  that  she 
now  has  nothing  to  fear  from  any  source, — produces 
a  painful  suspense  which  is  anything  but  tragic.  No 
skill  of  the  actress  can  altogether  save  her  from  a  cer- 


The  Tragic  Conclusion  127 

tain  appearance  of  fatuous  weak-mindedness,  or  fore- 
stall the  cynical  conclusion  that  she  dies  chiefly  in 
order  that  it  may  be  fulfilled  which  was  said  unto  him- 
self by  the  author,  namely:  I  will  write  a  tragedy. 

And  yet  such  a  conclusion  would  not  be  perfectly 
just  to  Schiller.  It  is  true  that  he  was  all  for  tragedy 
and  that  a  happy  moral  ending,  in  the  vein  of  Diderot, 
would  not  have  been  to  his  taste.  But  this  does  not 
tell  the  whole  story.  The  romantic  lovers  are  sacri- 
ficed in  order  that  the  guilty  president  and  his  vile 
accomplices  may  be  brought  to  book  and  punished  for 
their  sins.  The  heart  of  the  matter  for  Schiller  was 
to  free  his  mind  with  respect  to  the  infamies  of  high  life. 
It  was  this  that  tipped  his  pen  with  fire. 

Of  course  there  are  German  critics  who  find  Louise's 
conduct  in  this  last  scene  quite  'inevitable'  and  full  of 
a  high  tragic  pathos.     Thus  Palleske  says  of  her : 

Her  anxious  piety,  her  touching  and  indeed  so  intelligible 
devotion  to  her  father,  her  lack  of  freedom,  bring  on  her  fate. 
A  veil  of  mourning  rests  upon  all  she  says.  Heroic  liberty  of 
action,  such  as  befits  a  Juliet,  is  made  impossible  to  this  girl  by 
her  birth  in  the  bourgeoisie ;  she  has  only  the  liberty  to  perish, 
not  the  courage  to  be  happy.  Of  guilt  there  can  be  no  question 
in  this  case  :  her  anxiety,  her  filial  devotion,  are  her  whole  guilt ; 
her  virtue,  her  love  for  her  father,  become  her  ruin.  Whoever 
thoroughly  knows  the  bourgeoisie,  which  had  yet  to  recover  from 
these  wounds,*  will  admit  that  this  character  is  drawn  with 
terrible  truthfulness. 

1  ''Schillers  Leben  und  Werke",  15.  Aufl.  (1900),  p.  297.  In  earlier 
editions  of  Palleske's  work,  which  appeared  originally  in  1858-9,  Louise 
was  further  characterized  as  '  the  crushed  heart  of  the  German  people ' ; 
and  the  sentence,  *  which  had  to  recover  from  those  wounds ',  read : 
•  which  is  beginning  to  recover '. 


laS  Cabal  and  Love 

This,  however,  is  putting  too  fine  a  point  upon  it; 
it  implies,  when  closely  analyzed,  that  Schiller  de- 
liberately made  his  heroine  a  little  stupid, — a  view  of 
her  that  hardly  comports  with  the  rest  of  the  play. 
To  say  that  she  must  die  because  she  belongs  to  the 
bourgeoisie  is  mere  moonshine,  for  common  sense  can 
readily  find  a  number  of  escapes.  She  may  cleave  to 
her  father  and  send  her  lover  packing,  after  proper 
explanations;  or  she  may  cleave  to  her  lover. in  the 
face  of  her  father's  displeasure;  or  she  may  temporize^ 
in  the  hope  of  changing  her  father's  mind.  What  she 
actually  does  is  to  goad  her  lover  into  a  frenzy  by  her 
singular  conduct  and  then  come  to  her  senses  when  it 
is  too  late.  The  effect  is  to  cast  doubt  upon  the  inten- 
sity of  her  supposed  passion  for  Ferdinand.  One  gets 
the  impression  that  her  previous  sentimental  ecstasies 
were  not  perfectly  genuine;  that  she  does  not  really 
know  what  it  is  to  be  in  love,  or  how  to  speak  the  veri- 
table language  of  the  heart. 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that  when  Schiller  wrote 
*  Cabal  and  Love',  he  had  not  progressed  far  enough 
in  the  knowledge  of  femininity  to  be  able  to  draw  a 
perfectly  life-like  portrait  of  a  girl  in  Louise's  station. 
She  is  a  creature  of  the  same  order  as  Amalia  and  Le- 
onora,— a  sentimental  Schwdrmerin,  very  much  lack- 
ing in  character  and  mother-wit.  From  the  first  the 
expression  of  her  love  does  not  ring  perfectly  true. 
We  suspect  her  of  phrase-making, — she  is  quite  too 
ethereal  and  ecstatic  for  a  plain  fiddler's  daughter. 
No  trace  here  of  that  homely  poetic  realism, — Gretchen 
at  the  wash-tub,  or  Lotte  cutting  bread  and  butter, 
— with  which  Goethe  knew  how  to  invest  his  bourgeois 


Louise's  Religious  Sentimentalism        129 

maidens.  For  aught  we  can  learn  from  her  discourse 
Schiller's  Louise  might  be  a  princess,  brought  up  on 
a  diet  of  Klopstock's  odes.  That  a  girl,  returningy^. 
from  church,  should  inquire  of  her  parents  if  her  lover 
has  called,  is  quite  in  order.  That  she  should  then 
confess  that  thoughts  of  him  have  come  between  her 
and  her  Creator,  is  pardonable.  But  what  are  we  to  ' 
think  when  she  goes  on  to  say  to  her  own  parents : 

This  little  life  of  mine,  oh  that  I  might  breathe  it  out  into  a 
soft  caressing  zephyr  to   cool  his  face  !     This   little  flower   of    j 
youth,  were  it  but  a  violet,  that  he  might  step  on  it,  and  it  might    I 
die  modestly  beneath  his  feet !     That  would  be  enough  for  me,    ; 
my  father.  .  .  ._Not  that  I  want  him  now.     I  renounce  him  for    ' 
this  life.     But  then,  mother,  then,  when  the  barriers  of  rank  are 
laid  low ;  when  all  the  hateful  wrappings  of  earthly  station  fall 
away  from  us,  and  men  are  only  men, — I  shall  bring  nothing     I 
with  me  save  my  innocence  ;  but,  you  know,  father  has  so  often     ; 
said  that  pomp  and   splendid   titles  will  be   cheap  when   God 
comes,  and  that  hearts  will  rise  in  price.     Then  I  shall  be  rich. 
Then  tears  will  be  counted  for  triumphs,  and  beautiful  thoughts 
instead  of  ancestry.     I  shall  be  aristocratic  then,  mother.     What  _ 
advantage  will  he  have  then  over  his  sweetheart  ? 

What  can  one  think,  indeed,  except  that  this  super- 
nal maiden  has  been  reading  Klopstock's  jataous.*Qde 
to  Fanny '.^  ^ 

Louise's  passion,  then,  is  no  dangerous  earthly  flame, 
but  a  sentimental  dream,  a  private  revel  in  ecstatic 
emotion.  We  opine  that  she  does  not  really  need  her 
lover,  as  a  mortal  entity,  at  all,  and  are  prepared  to 

>  One  strophe  runs  : 

Dann  wird  ein  Tag  sein,  den  werd*  ich  auferstehn ! 
Dann  wird  ein  Tag  sein,  den  wirst  du  auferstehn  I 
Dann  trennt  kein  Schicksal  mehr  die  Seelen, 
Die  du  einander,  Natur,  bestimmtest. 


13©  Cabal  and  Love 

find  her  fearsome  and  irresolute  in  his  presence.  *  They 
are  going  to  separate  us, '  she  exclaims,  as  if  she  her- 
self had  no  voice  in  the  matter,  when  really  her  own 
timidity  is  the  great  obstacle.  She  is  no  Gretchen^  or 
Clarchen,  ready  to  give  all  for  love's  sake  andjump 
the  consequences;  still  less  is  she  a  bourgeois  Juliet, 
prepared  to  brave  a  family  tempest  provided  only  that 
her  Romeo's  bent  be  honorable,  his  purpose  marriage. 
Those  externalities  of  rank  which  she  expects  to  drop 
out  of  sight  in  heaven  loom  up  very  large  in  her  earthly 
field  of  vision.  She  fears  her  father's  displeasure. 
She  pretends  to  fear  the  ruin  of  her  Ferdinand's  career, 
albeit  he  assures  her  solemnly  that  she  is  of  more  im- 
portance to  him  than  all  else  in  the  world.  She  is  of 
the  opinion  that  her  marriage  to  a  man  with  a  von  in 
his  name  and  prospects  in  life  would  be  *  the  violation 
of  a  sanctuary';  would  '  unjoint  the  social  world  and 
demolish  the  eternal,  universal  order  '.  Wherefore  she 
is  minded  to  renounce  him.  *  Let  the  vain,  deluded 
girl ' — so  she  sighs — 'weep  away  her  grief  within  lonely 
walls;  no  one  will  trouble  himself  about  her  tears, — 
empty  and  dead  is  my  future, — but  I  shall  still  now  and 
then  take  a  smell  at  the  withered  nosegay  of  the  past. ' 
— No  wonder  that  before  she  reaches  this  awful  climax, 
Ferdinand  smashes  the  fiddle  and  bursts  into  laughter. 
On  the  stage,  the  scene  in  which  the  agonized  Louise 
is  compelled  to  write  the  compromising  letter  is  one  of 
the  most  effective  in  the  piece ;  and  yet  how  futile  and 
absurd  the  whole  intrigue  would  be  if  the  conspirators 
were  not  able  to  count  upon  her  being  a  goose !  One 
cannot  blame  her,  of  course,  for  doing  that  which  ap- 
pears to  be  necessary  in  order  to  save  her  father's  life. 


( 


Louise  as  a  Tragic  Heroine  131 

One  may  pardon  to  her  distress  the  solemn  oath  that 
she  will  acknowledge  the  letter  as  her  voluntary  act. 
But  if  she  were  really  in  love  with  Ferdinand  as  she  has\ 
pretended  to  be,  how  easy  it  would  be  for  her,  without  j 
violating  her  oath,  to  put  him  on  his  guard  against  the  I 
trap  that  has  been  laid  for  him!     In  the  scene  with-* 
Lady  Milford    she    appears  as  a  pert  little    pharisee, 
caustic,  sententious  and  philosophical  beyond  her  years ; 
so  that  one  wonders  why  a  girl  that  knows  so  much 
should  not  know  more.     She  herself  has  just  cast  her 
lover  off,  after  meeting  his  passionate  entreaties  with 
cool  prudential   argument.     In  a  stagy  paroxysm   of 
jealousy  she  resigns  her  Ferdinand  to  Lady  Milford, 
warning  her,  however,  that  her  bridal  chamber  will  be 
haunted  by  the  ghost  of  a  suicide.      But  why  should 
Louise  wish  to  quit  this  life  ?     She  has  said  farewell  to 
Ferdinand,  alleging   that   duty  bids  her  remain  and 
endure.     She  has  chosen  her  part.     All  that  separates 
her  from  her  lover  is  her  own  chimerical  sentiment  of 
duty.      Her  virtue  is  intact.      She  has  not  the  motive, 
say  of  Gemmingen's  Lotte,  for  self-destruction.      It  is  - 
hard  to  take  her  seriously  at  this  point,  and  we  wonder 
that  Lady  Milford  takes  her  seriously. 

Truth  to  tell,  Louise  makes  a  rather  tame  and  un-^ 
interesting  tragic  heroine^  Notwithstanding  all  her 
fervid  phrases,  she  is  essentially  cold.  Did  Schiller 
intend  this  effect,  or  is  it  due  to  the  fact  that  he  could 
not  have  portrayed  her  differently  ?  Did  it  really 
spring  from  his  limited  observation  of  the  feminine  heart 
and  of  girlish  ways,  or  from  a  deliberate  artistic  purpose 
to  account  adequately  for  Ferdinand's  jealousy  ?  Had 
he  taken  a  lesson  from  the  maidenly  reserve  of  Lotte 


132  Cabal  and  Love 

von  Wolzogen  and  the  prudential  scruples  of  her 
mother  ?  These  are  questions  upon  which  one  can  only 
speculate.  As  matters  stand,  the  whole  catastrophe  is_ 
made  to  hinge  upon  Ferdinand's  suspicion.  A  little 
~  patience,  a  little  faith  in  his  sweetheart,  would  turn  the 
course  of  fate.  But  her  conduct  makes  faith  difficult ; 
so  we  understand  his  jealousy,  but  not  so  well  his 
previous  infatuation.  He  is  in  love  with  a  beautiful 
soul  and  a  pair  of  forget-me-not  eyes,  but  the  presup- 
positions are  a  little  difficult.  He  is  resolved  to  marry 
Louise  for  better  or  worse, — it  is  all  understood,  so  far 
as  he  is  concerned.  Although  there  is  no  love-scene 
in  the  play,  we  do  hear  of  precedent  scenes  of  passionate^ 
self-surrender  (always  within  the  limits  of  virtue).  One 
cannot  help  asking:  Where  were  Louise's  scruples 
then }  Was  she  ignorant  of  her  father's  prejudice  or 
resolved  to  brave  it  ?  Had  she  never  reflected  upon 
the  august  foundations  of  the  social  order  ?  Had  she 
resisted  Ferdinand's  suit  and  warned  him  that  he  must 
be  content  with  a  yearning  friendship  on  earth  and  a 
union  of  souls  in  heaven  ?  None  of  these  suppositions 
can  be  said  to  prepare  us  fully  for  her  actual  conduct 
in  the  play,  where  she  appears  all  along  as  a  helpless 
bundle  of  tremors,  vacillating  between  an  alleged 
passion  in  which  we  do  not  fully  believe  and  a  sub- 
limated sense  of  duty  that  we  cannot  fully  understand. 

/In  Ferdinand  we  have  ^chiller's  favorite  type  of_ 
tragic  hero, — the  fervid  young  enthusiast  whose 
calamity  grows  out  of  his  own  strenuous  idealism.  He 
is,  however,  a  less  weighty  character  than  Karl  Moor, 
or  Carlos,  or  Max  Piccolomini,  because  we  see  in  him 
.    nothing  more  than  the  infatuate  lover.     In  their  case 


Character  of  Ferdinand  133 

love  is  paired  with  the  spirit  of  great  enterprise;  for 
him  it  is  all  in  all,  so  far  at  least  as  the  action  of  the 
play  is  concerned.  His  Louise  sums  up  the  entire 
macrocosm.  If  he  thinks  of  doing  anything  in  the 
world,  it  is  only  in  order  that  he  may  marry  her  and 
live  with  her  in  a  lover's  paradise  all  his  life.  This  is 
his  way  of  talking : 

Let  obstacles  come  between  us  like  mountains ;  I  will  make 
steps  of  them  and  fly  to  my  Louise's  arms.  The  storms  of  ad- 
verse fate  shall  inflate  my  feeling,  danger  shall  only  make  my 
Louise  the  more  charming.  ...  I  will  guard  you  as  the  dragon 
guards  the  subterraneous  gold.  Trust  yourself  to  me.  You 
need  no  other  angel.  I  will  throw  myself  between  you  and  fate, 
receive  every  wound  for  you  and  catch  for  you  every  drop  from 
the  cup  of  joy.  On  this  arm  shall  my  Louise  dance  through 
life,  etc. 

One  can  pardon  some  extravagance  to  a  stage  lover, 
since  his  intoxication  is  what  makes  him  amiable. 
Who,  for  example,  would  abate  a  jot  or  tittle  from  the 
delicious  nonsense  of  Romeo  ?  When  he  says  that 
carrion  flies 

may  seize 
On  the  white  wonder  of  dear  Juliet's  hand 
And  steal  immortal  blessings  from  her  lips, 

he  seems  to  have  expressed  himself  appropriately. 
There  is  no  suggestion  of  mawkishness  in  his  discourse. 
Our  Ferdinand,  however,  is  distinctly  spoony.  There 
went  no  poetic  irony  to  his  creation,  and  he  has  no 
saving  sense  of  humor.  He  never  seems,  like  Romeo, 
to  be  toying  with  hyperbole  in  an  artistic  spirit,  but  it 
is  all  dead  earnest.  Such  a  love-lorn  youth  must 
expect  to  recruit  his  admirers  chiefly  from  the  ranks  of 
the  very  young.     And  yet  there  are  times,  just  as  in 


134 


Cabal  and  Love 


the  case  of  Karl  Moor,  when  Ferdinand's  rhetoric 
becomes  impressive  from  sheer  titanic  force.  Thus 
when  he  says  to  Louise,  who  has  just  been  reminding 
him  of  his  prospects:  *  I  am  a  nobleman, — we  will  see, 
however,  whether  my  patent  of  nobility  is  older  than 
the  ground-plan  of  the  eternal  universe ;  whether  my 
escutcheon  is  more  valid  than  the  hand-writing  of 
heaven  in  Louise's  eyes:  This  woman  is  for  this  man.' 
It  is  undoubtedly  in  the  scenes  with  his  father  that 
Ferdinand  appears  at  his  best.  Here  at  least  there  is 
manly  vigor.  The  contrast  between  the  wicked  father 
and  the  good  son  is  effectively  brought  out,  although, 
as  in  the  case  of  Karl  and  Franz  Moor,  it  is  carried 
beyond  the  limits  of  easy  credibility.  How  unnatural 
is  the  relation  of  the  pair !  One  would  think  they  had- 
never  talked  with  each  other  before,  and  that  each  had 
lived  in  complete  ignorance  of  the  other's  character 
and  inclinations.  The  father,  by  way  of  founding  a 
claim  to  his  son's  grateful  affection,  declares  that  he 
has  *  trodden  the  dangerous  path  to  the  heart  of  the 
prince  '  and  killed  his  predecessor, — all  for  the  sake 
of  his  son.  He  admits  that  he  is  suffering  the  'eternal 
scorpion-stings  of  conscience  ',  and  yet  he  expects 
Ferdinand  to  follow  him  without  a  whimper,  and  he  is 
angry  when  the  young  man  indignantly  renounces  the 
usufruct  of  his  father's  crimes.  Although  Ferdinand 
is  a  major  in  the  army,  his  marriage  with  Lady  Milford 
is  arranged  for  him  as  if  he  had  no  claim  to  be  con- 
sulted. The  president  blurts  out  his  plan  with  brutal 
coarseness,  and  urges  it  in  language  which  he  knows 
will  rouse  his  son's  anger.  So  when  he  appears  in  the 
Miller  house  he  makes  himself  as  odious  as  possible. 


President  von  Walter  135 

Diplomacy  and  finesse  are  weapons  not  found  in  his 
armory,  though  he  is  a  courtier  and  a  successful  poli- 
tician. He  is  simply  a  cynical  brute  in  high  office. 
In  truth  his  conduct  is  so  very  inhuman  as  to  convey 
an  impression  of  burlesque.  He  seems  copied  from 
some  ogre  in  a  fairy  tale. 

But  if  President  von  Walter  appears  now  like  a  melo- 
dramatic caricature,  it  is  partly  because  times  have 
changed ;  for  Schiller  was  not  without  his  models  in  the 
recent  history  of  Wiirttemberg.  During  the  period  of 
Karl  Eugen's  worst  recklessness — the  decade  beginning 
with  1755, — he  was  loyally  abetted  by  two  men,  Rieger 
and  Montmartin,  who  made  themselves  thoroughly 
odious.  Rieger  was  a  man  of  talent  and  knowledge, 
but  without  heart  and  without  conscience.  It  was  he 
who  managed  the  cruel  and  lawless  conscriptions 
whereby  Duke  Karl  raised  the  desired  troops  for 
France.^  Young  men  were  simply  taken  wherever  they 
could  be  found, — pulled  from  their  beds  at  night,  or 
seized  as  they  came  from  church, — and  forced  into  the 
army  under  brutal  conditions  of  service.  Many  a 
Wiirttemberg  family  could  have  told  a  tale  of  barbarity 
essentially  similar  to  that  recounted  by  the  lackey  to 
Lady  Milford  in  the  second  act  of  Schiller's  play. 
Remorseless  oppression  of  the  people,  for  the  purpose 
of  raising  money  to  be  spent  on  the  duke's  costly 
whims,  became  the  order  of  the  day. 

Still  more  brutal  and  cynical  in  his  methods  than 
Rieger  was  Count  Montmartin,  who  was  made  President 
of  the  State  Council  in  1758.  A  cunning  and  wicked 
intriguer,  he  lent  himself  without  scruple  to  the  gratifi- 

1  See  above,  page  7. 


136  Cabal  and  Love 

cation  of  his  master's  lusts  and  caprices.  The  daughters 
of  the  land  were  unsafe  from  his  machinations  if  they 
had  had  the  misfortune  to  attract  the  wanton  eye  of 
their  sovereign.  In  1762,  wishing  to  be  rid  of  his 
powerful  rival,  Montmartin  trumped  up  a  charge  that 
Rieger  was  engaged  in  treasonable  correspondence  with 
Prussia.  The  result  was  that  Rieger  was  publicly  dis- 
graced. Meeting  him  one  day  on  parade  the  duke 
angrily  tore  off  his  military  order,  struck  him  with  his 
cane  and  then  shut  him  up  in  the  Hohentwiel,  where 
he  lay  for  four  years  without  light,  table,  chair  or  bed. 
In  like  manner  the  patriotic  publicist,  Moser,  was  im- 
prisoned for  five  years,  without  trial  and  without  sen- 
tence, because  he  had  withheld  his  consent  to  the 
duke's  high-handed  proceedings. 

Such  was  the  political  system  that  had  afflicted 
Wiirttemberg  during  Schiller's  childhood.  It  furnished 
him  with  his  dramatic  *  mythology',  as  it  has  been 
called.  The  name  may  be  allowed  to  pass,  only  it 
should  be  remembered  that  this  mythology  was  simply 
history.  The  rapier-thrusts  of  the  dramatist  were  not 
directed  against  wind-mills  of  the  imagination,  but 
against  political  infamies  that  make  one's  blood  boil  in 
the  reading  and  that  would  have  moved  a  more  spirited 
people  to  hang  their  rulers  to  the  nearest  tree.  This 
should  be  borne  in  mind  by  any  one  who,  in  the  milder 
light  of  a  later  and  better  era,  is  disposed  to  carp  at 
Schiller  for  caricaturing  the  nobility.  He  was  not  con- 
cerned with  aristocracy  in  general,  but  with  the  partic- 
ular kakistocracy  that  had  disgraced  his  native  land. 
And  ail  that  he  did  was  to  exhibit  it  as  it  was,  or  lately 
had  been. 


CHAPTER  VII 

tTbeatet  poet  in  Abannbelm 

Die  Schaubiihne  ist  mehr  als  jede  andere  Sffentliche  Anstalt 
des  Staats  eine  Schule  der  praktischen  Weisheit,  ein  Wegweiser 
durch  das  biirgerliche  Leben,  ein  unfehlbarer  Schliissel  zu  den 
geheimsten  Zugangen  der  menschlichen  Seele. — Discourse  on  the 
Theater,  1784. 

Mannheim,  famed  for  the  geometric  regularity  of 
its  streets,  was  in  Schiller's  day  a  city  of  about  twenty 
thousand  inhabitants.  Since  1720  it  had  been  the 
capital  of  the  Bavarian  Palatinate,  and  under  the  Elector 
Karl  Theodor  it  had  acquired  some  distinction  as  a 
nursery  of  the  arts.  We  have  seen  that  Schiller, 
coming  thither  from  Suabia,  imagined  himself  escaping 
from  the  land  of  the  barbarians  to  the  land  to  the  Greeks. 
In  the  year  1 777  the  Upper  and  Lower  Palatinate  were 
united,  and  the  Elector  transferred  his  residence  to 
Miinchen.  For  this  withdrawal  of  the  light  of  their 
ruler's  countenance  the  Mannheimers  were  compensated 
in  a  measure  by  the  establishment  among  them  of  a 
so-called  National  Theater.  There  was  no  German 
nation  at  the  time,  but  there  was  a  very  general  interest 
in  the  German  drama.  Lessing's  famous  experiment 
at  Hamburg,  though  it  turned  out  badly,  had  set  people 
thinking.  Playwrights  and  actors  were  learning  to 
regard    themselves    no    longer  as  purveyors  of  mere 

137 


138  Theater  Poet  in  Mannheim 

amusement,  but  as  the  dignified  representatives  of  a 
noble  art  having  boundless  possibilities  of  influence. 
The  public  was  becoming  interested  in  the  principles 
of  dramatic  construction  and  in  the  criteria  of  excel- 
lence. Scholars  were  beginning  to  inquire  whether  the 
stage  might  not  again  become  what  it  had  been  for  the 
ancient  Athenians.  And  so  the  way  had  been  prepared 
for  a  serious  conception  of  the  theater  and  for  experi- 
ments like  that  at  Mannheim. 

The  management  of  the  enterprise  was  placed  in  the 
hands  of  Baron  Heribert  von  Dalberg,  a  young  noble- 
man (born  in  1750),  who  had  given  no  evidence  of 
unusual  fitness  for  such  an  office,  but  was  a  connoisseur 
and  a  gentleman.  He  devoted  himself  zealously  to  his 
work  and  soon  made  his  theater  famous.  He  was 
courteous  and  hospitable,  kept  an  eye  open  for  promis- 
ing talent  and  enjoyed  the  role  of  Maecenas.  His 
system  provided  for  regular  meetings  of  his  actors,  at 
which  plays  were  discussed,  reports  rendered  and 
grievances  ventilated.  For  the  rest  he  was  not  a  man 
of  ideas,  but  a  follower  of  tradition.  He  disliked  to 
take  risks  and  often  missed  the  mark  in  his  judgment 
of  persons  and  of  plays.  He  continued  until  1803  to 
act  as  intendant  and  occasionally  tried  his  hand  at 
dramatic  composition,  or  the  adaptation  of  a  Shak- 
sperian  play.  All  told,  his  services  were  such  that  the 
Mannheimers  have  deemed  him  worthy  of  a  statue. 

Among  the  actors  whom  Baron  Dalberg 's  enterprise 
had  assembled  at  Mannheim  were  three  or  four  of 
notable  talent.  Thus  there  was  Iffland,  of  the  same 
age  as  Schiller,  who  was  destined  to  win  fame  as  an 
actor,  playwright  and  manager.     Like  Diderot,  Iffland 


Conditions  at  Mannheim  139 

believed  ardently  in  the  moral  mission  of  the  drama. 
He  was  himself  a  man  of  character  who  had  taken  to 
the  stage  against  the  wish  of  his  kinfolk,  and  now  his 
hobby  was  to  refine  the  language  of  the  stage  and  to 
elevate  the  actor's  profession.  He  was  an  industrious 
and  thoughtful  player,  who  gave  careful  attention  to 
the  little  matters  of  mimicry  and  personation  and  seldom 
failed  to  please.  Another  was  Beil,  a  greater  actor  in 
point  of  natural  endowment,  who  relied  more  upon 
vigorous  realism  than  upon  studied  refinements.  Then 
there  was  Beck,  who  was  at  his  best  as  a  portrayer  of 
youthful  enthusiasm  and  sentiment.  His  nature  was 
akin  to  Schiller's  and  a  warm  friendship  sprang  up 
between  the  two. 

When  Schiller  arrived  in  Mannheim,  late  in  July, 
1783,  Dalberg  was  in  Holland.  There  was  nothing 
going  on  at  the  theater,  and  the  sweltering  town, 
deserted  by  such  as  could  get  away,  was  suffering  from 
an  epidemic  of  malarial  fever.  But  the  faithful  Streicher 
was  there  and  friend  Meyer,  the  manager,  and  Schwan, 
the  publisher,  whose  vivacious  daughter,  Margarete, 
gradually  kindled  in  the  heart  of  the  new-comer  another 
faint  blue  flame  which  he  ultimately  mistook  for  love. 
His  first  concern  was  to  write  to  Frau  von  Wolzogen, 
who  had  loaned  him  money  for  his  journey,  a  detailed 
report  of  his  finances.  He  was  the  possessor  of  fifteen 
thalers,  whereof  he  had  reserved  five  for  the  return  to 
Bauerbach.  His  friend  Meyer  had  found  him  a  nice 
place  where,  by  dispensing  with  breakfast,  he  could 
eat,  drink  and  lodge  for  about  two  thalers  a  week. 
Hair-dresser,  washerwoman,  postman  and  tobacconist 
would  require,  all  told,  one  thaler.     So  he  hoped  to 


140  Theater  Poet  in  Mannheim 

keep  afloat  in  the  great  world  at  least  three  weeks,  and 
then, — back  to  his  heart's  home  in  Saxony!  The 
letter  continues: 

Oh,  I  shall  long  to  be  soon,  soon,  with  you  again  ;  and  mean- 
while, in  the  midst  of  my  greatest  distractions,  I  shall  think  of 
you,  my  dearest  friend.  I  shall  often  break  away  from  social 
circles  and,  alone  in  my  room,  sadly  dream  myself  back  with  you 
and  weep.  Continue,  my  dear,  continue  to  be  what  you  have 
been  hitherto,  my  first  and  dearest  friend ;  and  let  us  be,  all  by 
ourselves,  an  example  of  pure  friendship.  We  will  make  each 
other  better  and  nobler.  By  mutual  sympathy  and  the  delicate 
tie  of  beautiful  emotions  we  will  exhaust  the  joys  of  this  life  and 
at  the  last  be  proud  of  this  our  blameless  league.  Take  no  other 
friend  into  your  heart.  Mine  remains  yours  unto  death  and 
beyond  that,  if  possible. 

One  sees  that  the  writer  of  this  letter  had  lived  quite 
long  enough  in  his  idyllic  retirement,  and  that  his  bene- 
factress had  judged  the  case  wisely. 

Es  bildet  ein  Talent  sich  m  der  Stille, 

Sich  ein  Charakter  in  dem  Strom  der  Welt.* 

We  who  do  not  live  in  an  epoch  of  emotional  expan- 
sion have  the  right  to  get  what  amusement  we  can  out 
of  this  note  of  high-flown  sentimentalism.  At  the 
same  time  its  instructive  aspect  should  not  be  lost  sight 
of.  When  a  youth  of  twenty- three,  battling  with  the 
vulgar  prose  of  life,  falls  into  such  a  tone  in  writing  to 
a  middle-aged  lady  who  has  befriended  him ;  when  he 
lets  his  imagination  brood  upon  the  coming  luxury  of 
tears  and  of  beautiful  emotions ;  when  he  is  so  pathet- 
ically eager  to  reign  without  a  rival  in  the  heart  of  his 

1  A  talent  forms  itself  in  solitude, 
A  character  in  the  flowing  tide  of  life. 

^Goethe s  «  Ta$9o  '. 


Arrangement  with  Dalberg  141 

friend,  and  to  assure  her  of  his  everlasting  loyalty  in 
the  world  to  come, — how  shall  we  expect  him  to 
express  himself  when  he  undertakes  to  speak  the  lan- 
guage of  strong  feeling  in  works  of  the  imagination  ? 
Evidently  we  must  be  prepared  for  all  things  in  the 
way  of  sentimental  extravagance. 

After  two  weeks  of  idle  waiting  Schiller  was  able  to 
report  that  Dalberg  had  returned  and  was  showing 
himself  very  friendly.  The  man  was  *  all  fire  ', — only 
it  was  gunpowder  flame  that  would  not  last  long.  The 
genial  intendant  insisted  that  Schiller  should  by  all 
means  remain  in  Mannheim.  *  Fiesco  ',  now  in  print 
as  a  tragedy,  should  be  put  upon  the  stage  at  once; 
*  Louise  Miller  '  should  be  taken  under  consideration, 
a  performance  of  '  The  Robbers  '  be  given  for  the 
author's  special  gratification,  and  so  forth.  At  first 
Schiller  was  little  disposed  to  bank  upon  this  effusive 
kindness.  His  plans  went  no  further  than  to  effect  a 
sale  of  the  stage-rights  of  his  two  plays  and  then  to 
return  to  Bauerbach.  But  the  lures  of  Dalberg  finally 
prevailed  and  in  September  he  made  a  contract  for  a 
year's  employment  as  dramatist  of  the  Mannheim 
theater.  He  was  to  furnish  one  entirely  new  play,  in 
addition  to  those  he  had  on  hand,  and  to  have  as  com- 
pensation three  hundred  florins,  the  copyright  of  all  the 
plays  and  the  receipts  of  a  single  performance  of  each 
of  them.  For  a  moment  the  future  looked  tolerably 
bright.  He  saw  in  his  mind's  eye  an  assured  income 
of  more  than  twelve  hundred  florins,  which  would  pro- 
vide amply  for  his  needs  and  enable  him  to  pay  his 
debts. 

But  his  plans  went  all  wrong.     In  the  first  place> 


d[4«  Theater  Poet  in  Mannheim 

the  pestilent  fever,  which  he  fought  with  giant  doses 
of  quinine,  proved  very  intractable  and  held  him 
in  its  grip  for  months.  He  was  unable  to  work  and 
fell  into  a  sort  of  mental  coma.  In  a  letter  of  Novem- 
ber 1 3  he  describes  himself  as  eating  Peruvian  bark  like 
bread ;  and  six  weeks  later  he  was  still  suffering  from 
the  effects  of  his  unlucky  midsummer  plunge  into  the 
miasmatic  air  of  Mannheim.  In  other  ways,  too,  the 
new  situation  proved  a  disappointment.  Social  demands 
involved  him  in  expenditures  far  in  excess  of  his  modest 
calculations,  while  the  intervals  of  relief  from  physical 
incapacity  were  filled  with  a  hundred  distractions  which 
left  him  no  time  for  sustained  mental  effort.  And 
so  he  drifted  into  the  winter  without  accomplishing 
anything  more  notable  than  the  final  revision  of 
*  Fiesco  '. 

About  this  time  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the 
so-called  'German  Society',  a  learned  body  which 
enjoyed  the  protection  of  the  Elector.  This  little  honor 
was  highly  valued  by  Schiller,  since  it  made  him  a 
citizen  of  the  Palatinate  and  gave  him  an  assured  social 
status.  On  the  other  hand,  his  emergence  into  the 
light  of  day  as  a  respectable  functionary  was  not  with- 
out its  disadvantages,  since  his  creditors  now  became 
importunate.  There  were  pressing  duns  from  Stuttgart 
and  from  Bauerbach,  but  the  debtor  could  not  pay. 
He  became  involved  in  a  painful  correspondence  with 
his  father,  who  had  undertaken  to  guarantee  a  small 
debt  of  his  son  provided  that  another  larger  one  be  paid 
so  and  so.  When  this  hope  failed,  the  old  captain  lost 
patience  and  began  to  deal  out  counsel,  reproof  and 
warning  with  a  lavish  hand.     He  recommended  his  son 


Fiesco  on  the  Stage  143 

to  save  the  pennies  and  live  more  economically;  to 
return  to  medicine;  to  marry  a  wife;  to  remember  his 
Creator,  and  so  on.  To  all  of  which  the  perplexed 
Friedrich  could  only  reply  with  fresh  promises,  excuses 
and  recommendations  of  patience.  In  like  manner  he 
put  off  Frau  von  Wolzogen  until  she  began  to  lose  faith 
in  him.  A  sharp  letter  from  her  brought  him  to  his 
knees  with  a  humble  apology,  but  it  was  years  before 
he  could  pay  his  debt  to  her. 

The  first  performance  of  *  Fiesco  ',  the  adaptation  of 
which  to  the  stage  had  cost  its  author  such  a  world  of 
trouble,  took  place  on  the  12th  of  January,  1784.  As 
played  it  differed  a  good  deal  from  the  published  ver- 
sion, and  not  alone  with  respect  to  the  catastrophe. 
Thus  the  painful  episode  of  Bertha  was  worked  over 
into  something  less  revoltingly  horrible.  In  the  stage 
version,  instead  of  being  brutally  violated,  she  is 
abducted  by  a  tool  of  Gianettino,  but  rescued  and 
restored  to  her  home  unharmed.  With  this  change 
made  it  would  seem  as  if  there  were  less  reason  than 
ever  for  her  being  cursed  and  sent  to  a  subterraneous 
prison- vault.  Nevertheless  Verrina's  curse  was  allowed 
to  remain,  —  chiefly,  as  one  cannot  help  surmising, 
that  the  girl  might  be  rescued  with  eclat  in  the  fourth 
act.  (The  rescue  scene  in  '  The  Robbers  '  had  been  a 
great  success.)  It  has  already  been  noted  that  the 
offensive  quarrel  between  Julia  and  Leonora  was  omitted 
and  that  Leonora  was  allowed  to  live.  And  there 
were  other  such  changes.  Schiller  had  been  impressed 
by  an  actor's  criticism  of  his  florid  and  violent  lan- 
guage. He  accordingly  removed  or  toned  down  a  few 
blemishes  of  this  kind,  but  without  making  a  radical 


144  Theater  Poet  in  Mannheim 

revision  of  the  style.     Even  in  the  stage  version  there 
is  quite  too  much  of  rant  and  fustian. 

The  Mannheimers  took  but  little  interest  in  *  Fiesco  ', 
— it  was  too  erudite  for  them,  as  Schiller  explained  to 
Reinwald  some  months  later.  ^  Republican  liberty,  he 
went  on  to  say,  was  in  that  region  a  sound  without 
meaning;  there  was  no  Roman  blood  in  the  veins  of 
the  Pfalzer.  In  Berlin  and  Frankfurt,  however,  the 
piece  had  met  with  good  success.  We  cannot  blame 
Schiller  for  trying  to  extract  comfort  from  these  bits 
of  evidence  that  the  prophet  was  not  without  honor 
save  in  his  own  country,  though  we  may  question  his 
implication  that  republican  ideas  were  just  then  less  rife 
in  the  Palatinate  than  in  Berlin  and  Frankfurt.  The 
fact  is  that  the  lover  of  republican  ideas  must  have  been 
the  very  person  to  feel  the  keenest  dissatisfaction  with 
*  Fiesco  '.  Where  it  did  succeed,  its  success  was  due 
to  causes  having  little  to  do  with  political  sentiment. 
The  Berlin  triumph  was  equivocal,  being  the  triumph 
not  so  much  of  Schiller  as  of  one  Pliimicke,  who  took 
high-handed  liberties  with  the  original  text  and  made 
it  over,  in  both  language  and  thought,  so  as  to  suit  the 
taste  of  the  Berlin  actors.  This  northern  version,  thus 
diluted  with  the  water  of  the  Spree,  was  presently 
published  by  the  enterprising  pirate,  Himburg,  and 
proved  a  formidable  rival  of  the  genuine  edition.  The 
play  was  tried  at  several  theaters  and  with  various 
endings,  —  curiously  enough  Pliimicke  made  Fiesco 
commit  suicide  in  the  moment  of  his  triumph, — but  it 
never  became  really  popular.  It  was  translated  into 
English  in  1796,  into  French  in  1799. 

^.Letter  of  May  5,  1784. 


Theatrical  Triumphs  145 

Much  more  favorable  was  the  reception  given  to 
*  Cabal  and  Love  ',  which  was  first  played  at  Mannheim 
on  the  15th  of  April,  1784.^  The  part  of  the  lackey 
who  describes  the  horrors  attending  the  exportation  of 
soldiers  to  America  was  omitted;  the  satire  was  too 
strong  for  the  politic  Dalberg,  who  had  all  along  been 
troubled  by  Schiller's  drastic  treatment  of  princely 
iniquity  and  his  obvious  allusions  to  well-known  persons. 
Even  Schwan,  who  was  delighted  with  '  Louise  Miller  ' 
from  the  first  and  readily  undertook  to  publish  it, 
described  its  author  as  an  executioner.  This  time  the 
Mannheimers  had  no  difficulty  of  comprehension  and 
they  gave  their  applause  unstintingly.  After  the  great 
scene  in  the  second  act  they  rose  and  cheered  vocifer- 
ously,— whereat  Schiller  bowed  and  felt  very  happy. 
^  His  manner  ',  says  honest  Streicher,  who  has  left  a 
report  of  the  memorable  evening,  *  his  proud  and  noble 
bearing,  showed  that  he  had  satisfied  himself  and  was 
pleased  to  see  his  merit  appreciated. ' 

A  few  days  later  the  Mannheim  players  repeated  their 
triumph  at  Frankfurt,  where  Schiller  was  lionized  to  his 
heart's  content.  *  Cabal  and  Love  '  now  quickly  became 
a  stage  favorite.  Within  a  few  months  it  was  played 
successfully  at  nearly  all  the  more  important  theaters 
of  Germany.  Even  Stuttgart  fell  into  line,  but  the 
Duke  of  Wiirttemberg  was  not  pleased,  and  a  memorial 
of  the  nobility  led  to  the  prohibition  of  a  second  per- 

1  But  this  performance  was  not  the  first  in  order  of  time.  *  Cabal  and 
Love '  had  already  been  played  on  the  13th  of  April  by  Grossmann's 
company  at  Frankfurt.  Grossmann  was  an  intelligent  theatrical  man, 
who  had  conceived  a  liking  for  Schiller  ;  only  he  wished  that  the  *  dear 
fiery  man  '  would  be  a  little  more  considerate  of  stage  limitations. 


146  Theater  Poet  in  Mannheim 

formance.  At  Braunschweig  it  was  tried*  with  a  happy 
ending,  but  this  innovation,  reasonable  as  it  seems, 
took  no  root.  A  badly  garbled  English  translation  by 
Timaeus  appeared  in  1795;  a  better  one  by  Monk 
Lewis,  under  the  title  of  *  The  Minister  ',  in  1797.  A 
French  translation  by  La  Martelliere  was  hissed  off  the 
stage  of  the  Theatre  Fran^ais  in  1801. 

From  the  Minerva  press  the  new  play  got  blame  and 
praise.  One  writer  saw  in  it  the  same  Schiller  who 
was  already  known  as  the  *  painter  of  terrible  scenes 
and  the  creator  of  Shaksperian  thoughts  '.  A  Berlin 
critic  named  Moritz,  of  whom  we  shall  hear  later,  called 
the  piece  a  disgrace  to  the  age  and  wondered  how  a 
man  could  write  and  print  such  nonsense.  The  plot 
consisted,  he  declared,  of  a  simpleton's  quarrel  with 
Providence  over  a  stupid  and  affected  girl.  It  was  full 
of  crass,  ribald  wit  and  senseless  rodomantade.  There 
were  a  few  scenes  of  which  something  might  have  been 
made,  but  *  this  writer  converted  everything  into  in- 
flated rubbish  '.  Some  one  taxed  Moritz  w^ith  undue 
severity,  whereupon  he  returned  to  the  attack,  insisting 
that  this  extravagant,  blasphemous  and  vulgar  diction, 
which  purported  to  be  nature  rude  and  strong,  was  in 
reality  altogether  unnatural.^ 

And,  to  be  candid,  the  critic  was  able  to  bring 
together  an  anthology  of  quotations  which  seemed  like 
a  rather  forcible  indictment  of  Schiller's  literary  taste. 
What  Moritz  failed  to  see  was  that  the  bad  taste  was 
only  an  excrescence  growing  upon  a  very  vigorous 
stock.     This  was  felt  by  another  reviewer  who  declared 

*  Moritz's  critique   is  reprinted  in  J.  Braun's  "Schiller  und  Goethe 
im  Urteile  ihrer  Zeitgenossen  ",  I,  103. 


Discourse  on  the  Theater 


147 


that  high  poetic  genius  shone  forth  from  every  scene  of 
Schiller's  works.  Many  years  later  Zelter,  the  friend 
of  Goethe,  bore  witness  to  the  electric  effect  of  the  play 
upon  himself  and  the  other  excitable  youth  who  saw  it 
in  the  first  days  of  its  popularity.  Like  *  The  Robbers  ', 
it  was  a  harbinger  of  the  revolution.  It  seemed  to 
voice  the  hitherto  voiceless  woe  of  the  third  estate; 
and  just  because  of  that  savage  force  which  made  it 
seem  absurd  to  sedate  minds,  just  because  it  rang  out 
in  such  shrill  and  clangorous  notes,  it  has  continued 
to  be  heard.  Good  taste  is  a  matter  of  fashion.  It  is 
never  the  most  vital  quality  of  literature. 

If  any  one  should  be  tempted  to  think  that  Schiller's 
youthful  ideals  of  the  dramatic  art  were  not  sufficiently 
exalted,  he  should  read  the  lecture  given  before  the 
Mannheim  German  Society,  in  June^_  1284,  on  the 
question :  '  What  can  a  good  permanent  theater  really 
effect  ? '  It  is  an  excellent,  thoughtful  essay,  instinct 
"with  lofty  idealism  and  at  the  same  time  full  of  sound 
observation.  Setting  out  from  the  postulate  that  the 
highest  aim  of  all  institutions  whatsoever  is  the  further;:- 
ance  of  the  general  happiness^  the  paper  discusses  the 
theater  as  a  public  institution  of  the  state.  Its  claims 
are  examined,  and  the  sphere  and  manner  of  its  influ- 
ence discussed,  along  with  those  of  religion  and  the 
laws.  Probably  too  much  is  made  out  of  the  moral 
and  educational  utility  of  the  stage, — so  at  least  it  will 
be  apt  to  seem  to  an  American  or  an  Englishman, — 
but  the  familiar  arguments,  the  validity  of  which  is  now 
generally  recognized  in  Germany,  are  marshalled  with 
a  fine  breadth  of  view  and  with  many  felicities  of  ex- 
pression.    Toward  the  end  there  is  a  passage  which 


I 


148  Theater  Poet  in  Mannheim 

shows  that  Schiller  himself  felt  the  shakiness  of  the 
utilitarian  argument.  He  says :  *  What  I  have  tried 
to  prove  hitherto — that  the  stage  exerts  an  essential 
influence  upon  morals  and  enlightenment — was  doubt- 
ful ' ;  and  then  he  goes  on  to  speak  of  a  value  not 
doubtful,  namely,  its  value  as  a  means  of  refined  - 
pleasure.  This  is  the  heart  of  the  matter  forever  and 
ever;  and  one  could  hardly  sum  up  the  case  more 
sagely  than  Schiller  does  in  the  sentence :  *  The  stage 
is  the  institution  in  which  pleasure  combines  with  in- 
struction, rest  with  mental  effort,  diversion  with  cul- 
ture; where  no  power  of  the  soul  is  put  under  tension 
to  the  detriment  of  any  other,  and  no  pleasure  is 
enjoyed  to  the  damage  of  the  community. ' 

The  experience  of  Schiller  at  Mannheim  illustrates 
the  higher  uses  of  adversity.  Had  he  been  well  and 
happy,  he  might  have  written  his  third  play,  won  the 
good  will  of  Dalberg  and  then  stuck  fast  for  years  in 
the  Palatinate;  which  would  have  been  a  misfortune 
for  him  and  for  German  letters.  As  it  was,  Mannheim 
gradually  became  odious  to  him.  He  had  no  buoyancy 
of  spirit.  '  God  knows  I  have  not  been  happy  here  ', 
he  wrote  to  Reinwald  in  May,  1784.  His  Hfe  was  full 
of  petty  worries  and  distractions  which  weighted  his 
imagination  as  with  lead.  As  his  year  drew  to  an  end 
he  imagined  that  he  had  but  to  say  the  word  to  have 
his  contract  with  the  Mannheim  theater  renewed,  but 
it  was  not  so ;  Dalberg  had  quietly  decided  to  get  rid 
of  him.  From  his  point  of  view  his  poet  had  been  a 
bad  investment.  Schiller  had  not  kept  his  contract  in 
the  matter  of  the  new  play;  he  had  done  nothing  but 
procrastinate  and  make  excuses.      *  Don  Carlos  '  had 


Disappointments  and  Distractions        149 

not  even  been  begun.  There  seemed  to  be  no  excuse 
for  such  dawdling,  when  a  man  like  Iffland  could 
always  be  relied  upon  to  turn  out  a  fairly  acceptable 
play  in  a  few  weeks.  No  great  wonder,  therefore,  that 
Dalberg  lost  faith  in  Schiller  and  concluded  that  he 
had  exhausted  his  vein.  Through  a  friend  he  sug- 
gested a  return  to  medicine. 

Curiously  enough  Schiller  grasped  at  the  idea,  pro- 
fessing that  a  medical  career  w  as  the  one  thing  nearest 
his  heart.  He  had  long  feared,  so  he  wrote,  that  his 
inspiration  would  forsake  him  if  he  relied  upon  litera- 
ture for  his  living ;  but  if  he  could  devote  himself  to  it 
in  the  intervals  of  medical  practice,  good  things  might 
be  hoped  for.  He  accordingly  proposed  a  renewal  of 
the  contract  for  another  year,  with  the  understanding 
that  he  devote  himself  principally  to  his  medical  studies 
to  the  end  of  qualifying  for  the  doctor's  degree;  in  the 
mean  time  he  would  undertake  to  produce  one  '  great 
play  '  and  also  to  edit  a  dramatic  journal.  To  this 
amazing  proposal  Dalberg  paid  no  attention ;  and  when 
the  1st  of  September  arrived  Schiller's  connection  with 
the  Mannheim  theater  came  to  an  end. 

It  was  a  troublous,  harassing  time  for  him,  that 
summer  of  1784,  and  the  more  since  the  woes  of  the 
distracted  lover  were  added  to  those  of  the  disappointed 
playwright  and  the  impecunious  debtor.  A  German 
savant  observes  that  Schiller  was  not,  like  Goethe,  a 
virtuoso  in  love.  And  so  it  certainly  looks,  albeit  the 
difference  might  perhaps  appear  a  little  less  conspicuous 
if  he  had  lived  to  a  ripe  old  age  and  dressed  up  his 
recollections  of  youth  in  an  autobiographical  romance. 
He  did  not  lack  the  data  of  experience,  but  without 


ISO  Theater  Poet  in  Mannheim 

the  charm  of  the  retrospective  poetic  treatment  his 
early  love-affairs  are  not  profoundly  interesting.  In 
the  midst  of  his  troubles  it  came  over  him  that  marriage 
might  be  the  right  thing  for  him ;  and  so,  one  day  in 
June,  1784,  he  offered  himself  to  Frau  von  Wolzogen 
for  a  son-in-law.  Nothing  came  of  -the  suggestion ;  it 
was  only  a  passing  tribute  to  the  abstract  goodness  of 
matrimony.  About  a  year  later  he  made,  with  similar 
results,  an  argumentative  bid  for  the  hand  of  Margarete 
Schwan.  On  the  aforementioned  visit  to  Frankfurt  he 
met  Sophie  Albrecht,  a  melancholy  poetess  who  had 
sought  relief  from  the  tameness  of  her  married  life  by 
going  upon  the  stage.  Of  her  he  wrote  shortly  after- 
wards : 

In  the  very  first  hours  a  firm  and  warm  attachment  sprang 
up  between  us  ;  our  souls  understood  each  other.  I  am  glad 
and  proud  that  she  loves  me  and  that  acquaintance  with  me 
may  perhaps  make  her  happy.  A  heart  fashioned  altogether  for 
sympathy,  far  above  the  pettiness  of  ordinary  social  circles,  full 
of  noble,  pure  feeling  for  truth  and  virtue,  and  admirable  even 
where  her  sex  is  not  usually  so.  I  promise  myself  divine  days 
in  her  immediate  society.' 

But  all  these  palpitations  were  as  water  unto  wine 
in  comparison  with  his  unwholesome  passion  for 
Charlotte  von  Kalb,  whom  he  also  met  first  in  the 
spring  of  1784.  This  lady,  after  a  lonely  and  loveless 
girlhood,  in  which  she  had  been  tossed  about  as  an 
unwelcome  incumbrance  from  one  relation  to  another, 
had  lately  married  a  Baron  von  Kalb.  Her  heart 
had  no  part  in  the  marriage,  which  was  arranged  by 

*  From  the  letter  of  May  5,  quoted  above. 


Lover  and  Poet 


151 


her  guardian.  In  the  pursuit  of  his  career  her  husband 
left  her  much  to  herself.  She  was  an  introspective 
creature,  very  changeable  in  her  moods  and  passion- 
ately fond  of  music  and  poetry.  In  Schiller  she  found 
her  affinity.  He  acted  first  as  her  guide  about  Mann- 
heim, then  as  her  mentor  in  matters  of  literature.  They 
saw  much  of  each  other;  became  intimately  confidential 
and  soon  were  treading  a  dangerous  path, — though 
not  so  dangerous,  peradventure,  as  has  sometimes  been 
inferred  from  the  two  poems,  *  Radicalism  of  Passion  ' 
and  *  Resignation  ',  which  belong  to  this  period. 

In  the  first  of  these  poems  our  old  friend,  the  lover 
of  Laura,  who  is  supposed  to  have  married  another 
man  in  the  year  1782,  resolves  to  fight  no  longer  the 
*  giant-battle  of  duty  '.  He  apostrophizes  Virtue  and 
bids  her  take  back  the  oath  that  she  has  extorted  from 
him  in  a  moment  of  weakness.  He  will  no  longer 
respect  the  scruples  that  restrained  him  when  the 
pitying  Laura  was  ready  to  give  all.  Her  marriage 
vow  was  itself  sinful,  and  the  god  of  Virtue  is  a  detest- 
able tyrant.  In  the  other  poem,  which  is  a  sort  of 
antidote  to  the  first,  we  hear  of  a  poet,  born  in  Arcadia, 
who  surrendered  his  claim  to  earthly  bliss  on  the 
promise  of  a  reward  in  heaven.  He  gave  up  his  all, 
even  his  Laura,  to  Virtue,  though  mockers  called  him 
a  fool  for  believing  in  gods  and  immortality.  At  last 
he  appears  before  the  heavenly  throne  to  claim  his 
guerdon,  but  is  told  by  an  invisible  genius  that  two 
flowers  bloom  for  humanity, — Hope  and  Enjoyment. 
Who  has  the  one  must  renounce  the  other.  The  high 
Faith  that  sustained  him  on  earth  was  his  sufficient 
reward  and  the  fulfillment  of  Eternity's  pledge. 


152  Theater  Poet  in  Mannheim 

Wer  dieser  Blumen  eine  brach,  begehre 

Die  andre  Schwester  nicht. 
Geniesze  wer  nicht  glauben  kann.     Die  Lehre 
1st  ewig  wie  die  Welt.     Wer  glauben  kann  entbehre. 

Die  Weltgeschichte  ist  das  Weltgericht.' 

When  these  poems  were  published,  in  1786,  their 
author  saw  fit  to  caution  the  public  in  a  foot-note  not 
to  mistake  an  ebullition  of  passion  for  a  system  of 
philosophy,  or  the  despair  of  an  imaginary  lover  for 
the  poet's  confession  of  faith.  Thus  warned  one  should 
not  be  too  curious  about  the  reality  which  is  half 
revealed  and  half  concealed  by  the  verses.  Enough 
that  it  was  not  altogether  a  calm,  Platonic  sentiment, 
and  that  the  torment  of  it  was  a  factor  in  that  uneasi- 
ness which  finally  became  a  burning  desire  to  escape 
from  Mannheim.     And  the  fates  were  preparing  a  way. 

One  day  in  June,  when  all  was  looking  dark, 
Schiller  received  a  packet  containing  an  epistolary 
greeting,  an  embroidered  letter-case  and  four  portrait 
sketches.  The  letter  was  anonymous,  but  he  presently 
discovered  that  it  came  from  Gottfried  Korner,  a  young 
privat-docent  in  Leipzig,  who  had  united  with  three 
friends  in  sending  this  token  of  regard  to  a  Suabian 
poet  whom  they  had  found  reason  to  like.  Schiller 
did  not  answer  immediately  and  the  skies  grew  darker 
still.  His  relations  with  the  Mannheim  theater  were 
presently  strained  to  the  point  of  disgust  by  the  pro- 

1  In  Bulwer's  translation  : 

<•  He  who  has  plucked  the  one,  resigned  must  see 
The  sister's  forfeit  bloom  : 
Let  Unbelief  enjoy — Belief  must  be 
All  to  the  chooser  ;— the  world's  history 
Is  the  world's  judgment  doom." 


Honored  by  the  Duke  of  Weimar        153 

duction  of  a  farce  in  which  he  was  satirized.  He  was 
in  terrible  straits  for  money.  To  have  something  to 
do,  after  he  was  set  adrift  by  Dalberg,  he  decided  to 
go  ahead  with  his  project  of  a  dramatic  journal.  An 
attractive  prospectus  for  the  Rhenish  Thalia  was  issued, 
and  he  began  to  prepare  for  the  first  number,  which 
was  to  contain  an  installment  of  *  Don  Carlos  '.  The 
advance  subscriptions  fell  far  short  of  his  sanguine 
hopes.  In  these  occupations  the  time  passed  until 
December.  Then  one  day  he  penned  an  answer  to  the 
Leipzig  letter.  It  was  a  turning-point  in  his  destiny. 
A  correspondence  sprang  up  which  presently  convinced 
him  that  where  these  people  were,  there  he  must  be. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  year  there  came  another  glint 
of  good-will  from  the  north.  The  Duke  of  Weimar 
happened  to  be  visiting  at  the  neighboring  Darmstadt, 
and  through  Frau  von  Kalb  Schiller  procured  an  in- 
troduction and  an  invitation  to  read  the  beginning  of 
*  Don  Carlos  ' .  The  result  was  the  title  of  Weimar 
Councillor.  This  was  very  pleasant  indeed ;  for  while 
it  put  no  florins  in  his  purse,  it  gave  him  an  honorable 
status  in  the  German  world.  He  had  been  cast  off  by 
a  prince  of  the  barbarians  to  be  taken  up  by  the  prince 
of  the  Greeks  I  Henceforth  he  was  in  a  sense  the  col- 
league of  Goethe  and  Wieland.  He  began  to  speak 
of  the  Duke  of  Weimar  as  his  duke,  and  to  indulge  in 
day-dreams  concerning  the  little  city  of  the  Muses  in 
Thiiringen.  For  the  rest  there  was  an  element  of 
fate's  amusing  irony  in  the  new  title,  seeing  that  he 
had  just  announced  himself,  in  the  prospectus  of  the 
Rhenish  Thalia^  as  a  literary  free-lance  who  served  no 
prince,  but  only  the  public.     The  announcement  con- 


154  Theater  Poet  in  Mannheim 

tained  a  sketch  of  his  life  and  a  confession  of  his  sins, 
— which  he  laid  at  the  door  of  the  Stuttgart  Academy. 
*  The  Robbers  ',  he  declared,  had  cost  him  home  and 
country ;  but  now  he  was  free,  and  his  heart  swelled  at 
the  thought  of  wearing  no  other  fetter  than  the  verdict 
of  the  public,  and  appealing  to  no  other  throne  than 
the  human  soul. 

Owing  to  various  delays  the  first  number  of  the  new 
journal  did  not  appear  until  the  spring  of  1785,  and  by 
that  time  Schiller  was  all  ready  for  his  flight  northward. 
Matters  had  continued  to  go  badly  with  him.  On  the 
22nd  of  February  he  wrote  to  Korner,  *  in  a  nameless 
oppression  of  the  heart  * ,  as  follows : 

I  can  stay  no  longer  in  Mannheim.  For  twelve  days  I  have 
carried  the  decision  about  with  me  like  a  resolution  to  leave  the 
world.  People,  circumstances,  earth  and  sky,  are  repulsive  to 
me.  I  have  not  a  soul  to  fill  the  void  in  my  heart — not  a  friend, 
man  or  woman  ;  and  what  might  be  dear  to  me  is  separated 
from  me  by  conventions  and  circumstances.  .  .  .  Oh,  my  soul  is 
athirst  for  new  nourishment,  for  better  people,  for  friendship, 
affection  and  love.  I  must  come  to  you  ;  must  learn,  in  your 
immediate  society  and  in  intimate  relations  with  you,  once  more 
to  enjoy  my  own  heart,  and  to  bring  my  whole  being  to  a  livelier 
buoyancy.  My  poetic  vein  is  stagnant ;  my  heart  has  dried  up 
toward  my  associations  here.  You  must  warm  it  again.  With 
you  I  shall  be  doubly,  trebly,  what  I  have  been  hitherto  ;  and 
more  than  all  that,  my  dearest  friends,  I  shall  be  happy.  I  have 
never  been  so  yet.  Weep  for  me  that  I  must  make  this  confes- 
sion. I  have  not  been  happy  ;  for  fame  and  admiration  and  all 
the  other  concomitants  of  authorship  do  not  weigh  as  much  as 
one  moment  of  love  and  friendship.     They  starve  the  heart. 

To  the  worldly-wise  such  a  perfervid  sight-draft  upon 
the  bank  of  love,  made  after  a  few  weeks  of  epistolary 
acquaintance,  will  no  doubt  seem  a  little  risky.     One 


Escape  from  Mannheim  155 

IS  reminded  of  Goethe's  Tasso,  impulsively  offering  his 
friendship  to  a  cooler  man  and  getting  the  reply: 

In  Einem  Augenblicke  forderst  du 

Was  wohlbedachtig  nur  die  Zeit  gewahrt.^ 

But  this  time  Schiller's  instinct  had  guided  him  aright. 
Korner  was  no  Antonio,  and  he  did  not  recoil  even 
when  he  learned  that  his  new  friend  was  very  much  in 
need  of  money  and  would  not  be  able  to  leave  Mann- 
heim, unless  a  Leipzig  publisher  could  be  found  who 
would  take  over  his  magazine  and  advance  a  few 
pounds  upon  its  uncertain  prospects.  This  was  easily 
arranged,  for  Korner  was  well-to-do  and  had  himself 
lately  acquired  an  interest  in  the  publishing  business 
of  Goschen  at  Leipzig.  Goschen  took  the  Thalia 
(dropping  the  *  Rhenish '),  Schiller  paid  his  more 
pressing  debts,  and  early  in  April  was  on  his  way  to 
Leipzig,  panting  for  the  new  friends  as  the  hart  panteth 
after  the  water-brooks. 

*  Thou  askest  in  a  single  moment  that 
Which  only  time  can  give  with  cautious  hand. 


CHAPTER   VIII 
^be  3Boon  of  ^rien&sbfp 

Wem  der  grosse  Wurf  gelungen, 
Eines  Freundes  Freund  zu  sein,  .  .  . 
Mische  seinen  Jubel  ein. — '  Song  to  Joy  \ 

Gottfried  K6rner,  father  of  the  more  famous 
Theodor,  was  some  three  years  older  than  Schiller  and 
belonged  to  an  opulent  and  distinguished  family.  His 
father  was  a  high  church  dignitary,  his  mother  the 
daughter  of  a  well-to-do  Leipzig  merchant.  The  boy 
had  grown  up  under  austere  religious  influences  and 
then  drifted  far  in  the  direction  of  liberalism.  After  a 
university  career  devoted  at  first  to  the  humanities  and 
then  to  law,  he  had  travelled  extensively  in  foreign 
countries,  and  then  returned  to  Leipzig,  full  of  ambi- 
tion but  undecided  as  to  his  future  course.  Here,  in 
1778,  he  became  acquainted  with  Minna  Stock,  the 
daughter  of  an  engraver  who  had  once  been  the  teacher 
of  Goethe.  Stock  died  in  1773,  leaving  a  widow  and 
two  daughters  to  battle  with  poverty.  The  elder 
daughter,  Dora,  inherited  something  of  her  father's 
vivacious  humor  and  artistic  talent,  while  the  younger 
and  handsomer,  Minna,  was  of  a  more  domestic  temper. 
When  Korner  fell  in  love  with  the  amiable  Minna  and 
wished  to  marry  her,  he  met  with  opposition  in  his  own 
family,  who  thought   that  the   *  engraver's  mamsell ' 

156 


CHRISTIAN   GOTTFRIED    KORNER 
From  a  drawing  by  Wagener  (1790)  now  in  Diesden 


CHAPTER   VIII 


Zb€  Seen  of  f  ricnd^bfp 


grmm 


■gei\. 


Mis 

GorrrRiED  K<^ 
Theodor,  V 


ore  famous 


dignitary,    . 
Jo  Leipzig  merchant.     The  boy 

lustere  religious  influences  and 

lirection  of  liberalism.     After  a 

i  at  first  to  the  humanities  and 


If  a  veiled  exi 


in  foreign 


da 


m 

ck,   the 

.he  teacher 

>,  JL  widow  and 

>verty.  The  elder 
ething  of  her  father's 
Uiient,  while  the  younger 
as  of  a  more  domestic  temper. 
When  Kdrner  fell  in  love  with  the  amiable  Minna  and 
wished  to  t  'rm'^^Vfirm^ii^^  in  his  own 

family,  j^^,^. . .  ,^  ^^^_-^  ^  ,.^^^t^<^  *^p*W£'.8o^amsell ' 

156 


VlVavu>; 

and  har 


<i)'Mi 


The  Leipzig  Friends  157 

was  not  good  enough  for  him.  This  little  touch  of 
adversity  converted  him  from  a  gentleman  of  leisure- 
and  a  browsing  philosopher  into  a  man  with  a  purpose 
in  life.  He  set  about  making  himself  independent  of 
the  family  wealth.  To  this  end  he  offered  himself  asv 
a  privat-docent  in  law  at  the  Leipzig  university.  When 
this  expedient  failed  him  through  lack  of  students,  he- 
began  to  practice  and  soon  received  an  appointment 
which  took  him  to  Dresden.  This  in  1783.  Dresden, 
now  became  his  official  residence,  but  he  made  fre- 
quent visits  to  his  betrothed  in  Leipzig,  and  during 
one  of  these  his  memorable  letter  to  Schiller  was. 
indited. 

The  other  member  of  the  quartette  was  Ludwig 
Huber,  at  that  time  the  accepted  lover  of  Dora  Stock. 
Huber  was  three  years  younger  than  Schiller, — an  im- 
pressionable youth,  of  some  linguistic  talent,  who  had 
his  occasional  promptings  of  literary  ambition.  But 
his  soarings  were  mere  grasshopper  flights;  steady^ 
effort  was  not  his  affair  and  he  lacked  solid  ability.  A 
doting  mother  had  watched  and  coddled  him  until  in 
practical  affairs  he  was  comically  helpless.  As  the 
futility  of  his  character  became  more  apparent  with  the 
lapse  of  time,  he  lost  the  esteem  of  his  friends,  and  the 
engagement  with  Dora  Stock  was  broken  off.  So  far 
as  Schiller  is  concerned,  the  friendship  of  Huber  was  a 
passing  episode  of  no  particular  importance. 

Early  in  the  year  1785  Korner  lost  both  his  parents 
and  found  himself  the  possessor  of  a  considerable  for- 
tune. There  was  now  no  further  obstacle  to  his  mar-^ 
riage;  so  the  time  was  fixed  for  the  wedding  and  he 
set  about  preparing   a  home  for  his  bride.     Thus   it 


158  The  Boon  of  Friendship 

came  about  that  when  Schiller  arrived  in  Leipzig,  on 
the  17th  of  April,  1785, — mud,  snow  and  inundations 
had  made  the  journey  desperately  tedious, — he  did  not 
at  once  meet  the  man  whom  he  most  cared  to  know. 
Huber  and  the  two  ladies,  who  seem  to  have  expected 
a  wild,  dishevelled  genius,  were  astonished  to  see  a 
mild-eyed,  bashful  man,  who  bore  little  resemblance  to 
Karl  Moor  and  needed  time  to  thaw  up.  But  the 
stranger  soon  felt  at  home.  He  had  explained  to 
Huber  minutely  how  he  wished  to  live.  He  would  no 
longer  keep  his  own  establishment, — he  could  manage 
an  entire  dramatic  conspiracy  more  easily  than  his  own 
housekeeping.  At  the  same  time  he  did  not  wish  to 
live  alone. 

I  need  for  my  inward  happiness  [he  wrote]  a  right  true  friend 
who  is  always  at  hand  Hke  my  angel ;  to  whom  I  can  communi- 
cate my  budding  ideas  and  emotions  in  the  moment  of  their 
birth,  without  writing  letters  or  making  visits.  Even  the  trivial 
circumstance  that  my  friend  lives  outside  my  four  walls  ;  that  I 
must  go  through  the  street  to  reach  him,  that  I  must  change  my 
dress,  or  the  like,  kills  the  enjoyment  of  the  moment.  My  train 
of  thought  is  liable  to  be  rent  in  pieces  before  I  can  get  to  him. 
...  I  cannot  live  parterre,  nor  in  the  attic,  and  I  should  not  like 
to  look  out  upon  a  churchyard.  I  love  men  and  the  thronging 
crowd.  If  I  cannot  arrange  it  so  that  we  (I  mean  the  five-parted 
clover-leaf)  may  eat  together,  then  I  might  resort  to  the  table 
<i'h6te  of  an  inn,  for  I  had  rather  fast  than  not  dine  in  company.* 

It  is  clear  that,  notwithstanding  experiences  which 
might  have  embittered  a  less  genial  nature,  Schiller 
was  in  no  danger  of  becoming  a  misanthrope.  For 
him  the  throng  upon  the  street  was  not  the  madding 
crowd  of  the  English  poet,  nor  the  *  cursed  race  '  of 

*  Letter  of  March  25,  1785. 


A  Proposal  of  Marriage  159 

Frederick  the  Great,  but  an  inspiration ;  a  spectacle  to 
keep  the  heart  warm  and  foster  the  sense  of  brother- 
hood. He  felt  the  need  of  men,  however  shabbily  they 
might  treat  him.  And  men  enough  were  at  hand; 
for  the  Leipzig  fair  was  then  on,  and  the  town  was  full 
of  strangers  who  were  eager  to  gape  at  the  author  of 
*  The  Robbers  ',  to  be  introduced  to  him,  to  invite  him 
here  and  there.  So  for  a  week  he  floated  with  the 
current  of  casual  dissipation  and  then,  caught  for  an 
hour  by  a  refluent  eddy  of  lonesomeness, — four  parts 
of  the  pentamerous  clover-leaf  were  paired  lovers, — 
he  penned  a  missive  which  might  have  changed  much 
in  his  future  career:  He  sent  to  Christian  Schwan  a 
formal  proposal  for  the  hand  of  Margarete.  With 
characteristic  optimism  he  urged  that  fortune  had  at 
last  turned  favorably.  He  had  good  prospects.  He 
proposed  to  work  hard  upon  *  Don  Carlos  '  and  the 
Thalia y  and  meanwhile  quietly  to  return  to  medicine. 
Wherefore  he  now  made  bold  to  express  a  hope  that 
he  had  long  cherished  but  had  not  dared  to  utter. 

The  sequelae  of  this  wooing  have  never  been  cleared 
up  in  detail.  Schiller's  letter  as  preserved  bears  a 
marginal  note  by  Schwan  to  the  eflect  that  Laura  in 
the  poem  *  Resignation  '  was  no  other  than  his  eldest 
daughter.  '  I  gave  her  this  letter  to  read  ',  the  note 
says,  *  and  told  Schiller  to  apply  directly  to  her. 
Why  nothing  came  of  the  affair  has  remained  a  riddle 
to  me.  Happy  my  daughter  would  not  have  been  with 
Schiller. '  The  annotation  is  not  dated.  The  identifi- 
cation of  Laura  with  Margarete  is  obviously  wrong. 
Was  Schwan 's  memory  also  at  fault  ?  Did  he  imagine, 
long  after  the  fact,  that  he  had  actually  taken  what 


i6o  The  Boon  of  Friendship 

•must  have  seemed  to  him,  when  Schiller  had  become 
^  famous  poet,  the  reasonable  course  to  have  pursued  ? 
Did  he  withhold  the  letter  too  long  and  then  show  it  ? 
Or  was  Margarete  herself  disinclined, — piqued  perhaps 
hy  Schiller's  neglect  of  her,  or  by  his  passion  for 
Charlotte  von  Kalb  ?  Or  did  Schiller's  own  courage 
fail  him  after  he  had  received  a  hint  of  favor  ?  A  letter 
to  Korner,  written  May  7,  tells  of  pleasant  news  from 
Mannheim,  and  shortly  afterward  a  rumor  was  in  cir- 
culation that  Schiller  was  about  to  marry  a  rich  wife. 
The  probability  is  that  neither  party  was  more  than 
.'half  inclined  to  the  match.  The  blue  flame  perished 
naturally  for  lack  of  fuel. 

Early  in  May,  following  the  custom  of  well-to-do 
Leipzigers,  Schiller  sought  refuge  from  the  incipient 
summer  heat  of  the  city  by  taking  rooms  in  the  subur- 
ban village  (such  it  was  then)  of  Gohlis.  Here,  in  a 
little  second-story  chamber,  which  was  provided  with 
an  infinitesimal  bed-room,  he  lived  some  four  months, 
— ^happy  months,  in  the  main,  even  if  the  famous 
-*  Song  to  Joy  ',  which  local  tradition  ascribes  to  this 
time  and  place,  was  in  fact  written  a  little  later  in 
Dresden.  Various  friends  were  at  hand.  Besides 
Huber  there  was  Goschen,  with  whom  he  was  soon  on 
terms  of  intimacy.  The  Stock  sisters, — '  our  dear 
^irls ',  as  he  calls  them  in  a  letter  to  the  absent 
Korner, — had  likewise  quartered  themselves  in  Gohlis; 
and  so  had  Dr.  Albrecht  and  his  wife,  Sophie,  the 
actress.  These  with  one  or  two  others  were  enough 
for  converse  and  for  jollity;  and  there  were  merry 
evenings,  with  wine  and  talk,  and  cards  and  skittles 
and    nonsense.        Though    ordinarily   he    'joked   wi' 


Sojourn  at  Gohlis  i6t 

difficulty',  Schiller  could  be  jovial  enough  in  a  com- 
pany of  congenial  spirits.  Nevertheless  there  was  but 
little  of  the  bohemian  about  him.  That  dignified 
seriousness  which  pervades  all  his  later  writings,  and 
gave  to  Goethe  the  impression  of  a  man  dwelling 
habitually  above  the  plane  of  vulgar  things,  was  be- 
ginning even  now  to  characterize  him  as  a  social  being.  ^ 

While  living  at  Gohlis  he  received  a  visit  from 
Moritz,  the  man  who  had  written  so  savagely  of 
*  Cabal  and  Love  '.  If  ever  an  author  has  been  justified 
in  giving  the  cut  direct  to  a  pestilent  reviewer,  this  was 
the  occasion.  But  Schiller  received  his  visitor  with 
suave  courtesy;  an  interchange  of  views  followed  and 
the  two  men  parted  with  embraces  and  protestations 
of  friendly  esteem.  Schiller  was  not  a  good  hater, 
except  of  hate.  His  nature  craved  love  and  friendship. 
He  was  eager  to  learn  of  his  critics  and  could  not  long 
cherish  resentment  over  an  honest  expression  of 
opinion.  Besides  this  he  had  now  come  to  feel  that 
his  early  writings  were  anything  but  invulnerable. 

Notwithstanding  his  promise  of  steady  industry, 
Schiller  accomplished  but  little  during  his  sojourn  at 
Gohlis.  It  was  the  old  story:  There  were  too  many 
distractions,  too  many  confusing  images  of  what  might 
be  done.  The  scheme  of  an  antidote  to  '  The  Robbers  ', 
in  the  shape  of  a  moral  sequel,  gradually  dropped  out 
of  view,  along  with  the  medical  studies.  The  Thalia y 
originally  planned  with  reference  to  the  public  at 
Mannheim,  refused  to  bear  transplanting  to  another 
soil  without  a  season  of  wilting.  Instead  of  manuscript 
for  the  second  number,  Goschen  was  obliged  to  content 
himself  for  several  months  with  excuses  for  postpone- 


i62  The  Boon  of  Friendship 

ment.  And  as  for  '  Don  Carlos  ' ,  the  conception  had 
so  changed  with  the  lapse  of  time  that  its  author  felt 
at  a  loss  how  to  manage  it.  The  play,  with  its  won- 
derful pair  of  dreamers,  was  waiting  for  the  inspiration 
of  a  real  friendship  at  Dresden. 

Long  before  they  met  in  the  body  Schiller  and 
Korner  had  given  expression  to  their  mutual  trust  in 
language  of  romantic  enthusiasm.  On  the  2nd  of  May 
Korner  wrote  at  length  of  his  own  life,  character  and 
aspirations.  The  letter  reveals  a  noble  nature  con- 
scious of  an  exceptional  indebtedness  to  fortune  and 
eager  to  pay  the  debt  by  solid  work  for  mankind,  but 
lacking  the  ability  to  decide  and  execute.  Korner 
evidently  felt  that  he  was  in  some  danger  of  becoming 
an  intellectual  Sybarite,  and  he  hoped  that  Schiller's 
example  would  save  him  from  this  danger  by  spurring 
him  to  literary  effort.  In  his  reply  Schiller  expresses 
his  admiration  of  a  character  to  whom  fortune's  favor 
means  not,  as  for  most  men,  the  opportunity  of  enjoy- 
ment, but  the  duty  of  more  strenuous  living ;  then  he 
sends  a  jubilant  Godspeed  to  the  *  dear  wanderer  who 
wishes  to  accompany  him  in  such  faithful,  brotherly 
fashion  on  his  romantic  journey  to  truth,  fame  and 
happiness.'     The  letter  continues: 

I  now  feel  realized  in  us  what  as  poet  I  but  prophetically 
imagined.  Brotherhood  of  spirits  is  the  most  infallible  key  to 
wisdom.  Separately  we  can  do  nothing.  ...  Do  not  fear  from 
this  time  forth  for  the  endless  duration  of  our  friendship.  Its 
materials  are  the  fundamental  impulses  of  the  human  soul.  Its 
territory  is  eternity  ;  its  non  plus  ultra  the  Godhead. 

Then,  as  if  momentarily  abashed  by  his  own  extrava- 
gance of  expression,  he  protests  that  his  Schwdrmereiy 


An  Enthusiastic  Letter  163 

if  such  it  be,  is  nothing  but  a  '  joyful  paroxysm  antici- 
pating our  future  greatness  '.  For  his  part,  he  would 
not  '  exchange  one  such  moment  for  the  highest 
triumph  of  cold  reason  '.  Enthusiasm,  he  declares,  is 
the  greatest  thing  in  life. 

The  two  men  did  not  see  each  other  until  July, 
when  a  meeting  was  arranged  at  an  interjacent  village, 
to  which  Schiller  rode  out  with  the  Leipzig  friends. 
The  next  day  he  wrote  a  letter  to  Korner,  who  had 
returned  to  Dresden,  describing  an  incident  of  the 
return  journey, — a  letter  so  full  of  instruction  with 
regard  to  the  Schiller  of  this  period  that  it  deserves 
to  be  quoted  at  some  length : 

Somehow  we  came  to  speak  of  plans  for  the  future.  My  heart 
grew  warm.  It  was  not  idle  dreaming.  I  had  a  solid  philosophic 
assurance  of  that  which  I  saw  lying  before  me  in  the  glorious 
perspective  of  time.  In  a  melting  mood  of  shame,  such  as  does 
not  depress  but  rouses  to  manly  effort,  I  looked  back  into  the 
past,  which  I  had  misused  through  the  most  unfortunate  waste 
of  energy.  I  felt  that  nature  had  endowed  me  with  powers  on  a 
bold  plan,  and  that  her  intention  with  me  (perhaps  a  great  inten- 
tion) had  so  far  been  defeated.  Half  of  this  failure  was  due  to  the 
insane  method  of  my  education,  and  the  adverse  humor  of  fate  ; 
the  other  and  larger  half,  however,  to  myself.  Deeply,  my  best 
of  friends,  did  I  feel  all  that,  and  in  the  general  fiery  ferment  of 
my  emotions,  head  and  heart  united  in  a  Herculean  vow  to  make 
good  the  past  and  begin  anew  the  noble  race  to  the  highest  goal. 
My  feeling  became  eloquent  and  imparted  itself  to  the  others 
with  electric  power.  O  how  beautiful,  how  divine,  is  the  con- 
tact of  two  souls  that  meet  on  the  way  to  divinity  !  Thus  far  not 
a  syllable  had  been  spoken  of  you,  but  I  read  your  name  in 
Huber's  eyes  and  involuntarily  it  came  to  my  lips.  Our  eyes 
met  and  our  holy  purpose  fused  with  our  holy  friendship.  It 
was  a  mute  hand-clasp — to  remain  faithful  to  the  resolution  of 
this  moment ;  to  spur  each  other  on  to  the  goal,  to  admonish 


i64  The  Boon  of  Friendship 

and  encourage,  and  not  to  halt  save  at  the  bourne  where  human 
greatness  ends.  .  .  .  Our  conversation  had  taken  this  turn  when 
we  got  out  for  breakfast.  We  found  wine  in  the  inn,  and  your 
health  was  drunk.  We  looked  at  each  other  silently  ;  our  mood 
was  that  of  solemn  worship  and  each  one  of  us  had  tears  in  his 
eyes,  which  he  tried  to  keep  back.  ...  I  thought  of  the  begin- 
ning of  the  eucharist :  '  Do  this  as  often  as  ye  drink  in  memory 
of  me.'  I  heard  the  organ  and  stood  before  the  altar.  Suddenly 
I  remembered  that  it  was  your  birthday.  Unwittingly  we 
had  celebrated  it  with  a  holy  rite.  Dearest  friend,  had  you  seen 
your  glorification  in  our  faces,  heard  it  in  our  tear-choked  voices, 
at  that  moment  you  would  have  forgotten  even  your  betrothed  ; 
you  would  have  envied  no  happy  mortal  under  the  sun.  Heaven 
has  strangely  brought  us  together,  but  in  our  friendship  it  shall 
have  wrought  a  miracle.  Dim  foreboding  led  me  to  expect 
much,  very  much  of  you,  when  I  first  decided  to  come  to  Leip- 
zig ;  but  Providence  has  more  than  fulfilled  the  promise,  and  has 
vouchsafed  to  me  in  your  arms  a  happiness  of  which  I  could  not 
form  an  image. 

It  tends  to  provoke  a  smile  to  read  on  in  this  letter 
and  find  it  suddenly  turning  from  such  ecstasies  to  a 
straightforward  confession  that  the  writer  is  embarrassed 
for  lack  of  ready  cash.  He  had  met  with  disappoint- 
ments. The  Mannheim  people  had  not  treated  him 
handsomely,  the  subscribers  to  the  Thalia  were  delin- 
quent, and  so  forth.  Could  not  Goschen  be  persuaded 
to  undertake  a  new  and  authentic  edition  of  the  pub- 
lished plays  and  to  advance  a  sum  of  money  on  the 
prospects  }  Korner's  reply  was  prompt  and  charac- 
teristic. He  enclosed  a  draft  for  current  expenses, 
promised  more  against  the  time  of  need  and  bade  his 
friend  have  no  further  solicitude  about  money.  He 
knew  very  well,  so  he  averred  with  politic  delicacy, 
that  Schiller  could  easily  earn  enough  by  working  for 


With  the  new  Friends  in  Dresden       165 

money;  but  for  a  year  at  least  he  was  to  let  himself 
be  relieved  of  that  degrading  necessity.  They  would 
keep  an  account  and  all  should  be  paid  back  with 
interest  in  the  time  of  abundance ;  but  for  the  present 
no  more  of  pecuniary  anxieties!  Schiller,  to  whose 
brief  experience  in  a  selfish  world  this  sort  of  conduct 
was  something  new,  replied  that  he  would  not  entrench 
himself  in  a  false  pride,  as  the  great  Rousseau  had  done 
on  a  similar  occasion,  but  would  accept  the  generous 
offer;  this  being  the  best  possible  expression  of  his 
gratitude.  Korner  was  pleased  to  have  the  business 
settled  by  letter.  *  I  have  always  despised  money  ' , 
he  wrote,  *  to  a  degree  that  it  disgusts  me  to  talk 
about  it  with  souls  that  are  dear  to  me.  I  attach  no 
importance  to  actions  that  are  natural  to  people  of  our 
sort,  and  which  you  would  perform  for  me  were  the 
conditions  reversed. ' 

It  was  now  arranged  that  after  Korner 's  marriage 
Schiller  should  make  his  home  in  Dresden.  The 
eagerly  awaited  migration  took  place  in  September, 
and  Schiller  entered  the  Saxon  capital,  which  was  to 
be  his  home  for  the  next  two  years,  in  a  flutter  of 
joyous  anticipation.  The  Korners  quartered  him  in 
their  charming  suburban  cottage  at  Loschwitz,  in  the 
loveliest  region  he  had  known  since  his  childhood. 
The  guest,  who  had  seen  but  little  of  the  quiet  joys  of 
domestic  life  and  was  now  received  on  the  footing  of 
an  adopted  brother,  felt  very  happy.  His  intercourse 
with  Korner  gave  him  the  very  kind  of  intellectual 
stimulus  that  he  most  needed.  Korner  was  at  this 
time  the  more  solid  character  of  the  two.  He  had 
seen  more  of  the  world.     While  capable  of  warm  affec- 


1 66  The  Boon  of  Friendship 

tion  and  strong  enthusiasm,  he  had  adopted  a  profes- 
sion which  inevitably  gave  to  his  thoughts  a  practical 
bent.  Besides  this  he  had  taken  up  the  study  of  Kant 
with  great  earnestness  and  was  thereby  more  than  ever 
disposed  to  see  all  questions  in  the  white  light  of  pure 
reason.  He  was  thus  the  very  man  to  pour  a  cool 
Mephistophelean  spray  upon  Schiller's  emotional  fer- 
vors. One  can  easily  imagine  the  general  drift  of  the 
philosophical  discussions  that  took  place  during  the 
lengthening  evenings  of  September,  1785,  when  we 
find  Schiller  expressing  himself  to  the  absent  Huber  in 
such  language  as  this: 

The  boyhood  of  our  minds  is  now  over,  I  imagine,  and  like- 
wise the  honeymoon  of  our  friendship.  Let  our  hearts  now 
cleave  to  each  other  in  manly  affection,  gush  little  and  feel 
much  ;  plan  little  and  act  the  more  fruitfully.  Enthusiasm  and 
ideals  have  sunk  incredibly  in  my  estimation.  As  a  rule  we 
make  the  mistake  of  estimating  the  future  from  a  momentary 
feeling  of  enhanced  power,  and  painting  things  in  the  color  of 
our  transient  exaltation  of  feeling.  I  praise  enthusiasm,  and  love 
the  divine  ethereal  power  of  kindling  to  a  great  resolution.  It 
pertains  to  the  better  man,  but  it  is  not  all  of  him. 

But  life  at  Loschwitz  was  not  lived  altogether  in  the 
upper  altitudes  of  solemn  philosophy.  From  this 
period  dates  the  well-known  '  Petition  ', — one  of  the 
few  glints  of  playful  humor  to  be  found  among  Schiller's 
poems.  He  had  been  left  alone  one  day  with  '  Don 
Carlos  ',  and  he  found  his  meditations  disturbed  by  the 
operations  of  the  washerwoman.  The  result  was  a 
string  of  humorous  stanzas  bewailing  the  fate  of  a  poet 
who  is  compelled  by  his  vocation  to  fix  his  mind  upon 
the  love  ecstasies  of  Princess  Eboli,  and  listen  at  the 
same  time  to  the  swashy  music  of  the  wash-tub: 


The  Song  to  Joy  167 

I  feel  my  love-lorn  lady's  hurt, 

My  fancy  waxes  hotter; 
I  hear, — the  sound  of  sock  and  shirt ' 

A-swishing  in  the  water. 

Vanished  the  dream — the  faery  chimes — 

My  Princess,  pax  vobiscum  ! 
The  devil  take  these  wash-day  rimes, 

I  will  no  longer  risk  'em. 

When  the  Korners  occupied  their  winter  residence 
in  the  city,  Schiller  found  rooms  hard  by,  and  was 
presently  joined  by  Huber,  who  had  secured  a  position 
in  the  diplomatic  service.  The  time  was  now  ripe  for 
that  jubilant  song,  more  frequently  set  to  music  than 
any  other  of  Schiller's  poems,  wherein  we  are  intro- 
duced to  a  mystic  brotherhood,  worshiping  in  fiery 
intoxication  at  the  shrine  of  the  celestial  priestess,  Joy, 
whose  other  name  is  Sympathy.  A  mystic  brother- 
hood ;  yet  not  an  exclusive  one,  since  the  fraternal  kiss 
is  freely  offered  to  every  mortal  on  the  round  earth 
who  has  found  one  soul  to  love.  The  lines  glorify 
Joy,  just  as  the  odes  to  Laura  had  previously  glorified 
Love,  as  a  mystic  attraction  pervading  all  nature  and 
leading  up  to  God ;  as  that  which  holds  the  stars  in 
their  course,  inspires  the  searcher  after  truth,  sustains 
the  martyr  and  gives  a  pledge  of  immortality.  Where- 
fore the  millions  are  exhorted  to  endure  patiently  for 
the  better  world  that  is  coming,  when  a  great  God  will 
reward.  Anger  and  vengeance  are  to  be  forgotten, 
and  our  mortal  foe  forgiven.  After  these  rapturous 
strophes,  culminating  in  a  health  to  the  good  Spirit 
above,  one  is  just  a  little  surprised  to  hear  the  singer 
urge,  with  unabated  ardor,  a  purely  militant  ideal  of 


1 68  The  Boon  of  Friendship 

life, — firm  courage  in  heavy  trial,  succor  to  the 
oppressed,  manly  pride  in  the  presence  of  kings,  and 
death  to  the  brood  of  liars.  A  final  strophe,  urging 
grace  to  the  criminal  on  the  scaffold,  general  forgive- 
ness of  sinners  and  the  abolition  of  hell,  was  rejected 
by  Schiller,  who  later  characterized  the  song  as  a  *  bad 
poem  '.  The  '  Song  to  Joy  '  sprang  from  noble  senti- 
ment and  has  the  genuine  lyric  afflatus ;  but  its  author 
had  not  yet  emerged  from  that  nebulous  youthful  senti- 
mentalism  according  to  which  joy,  sympathy,  love, 
friendship,  virtue,  happiness,  God,  were  all  very  much 
the  same  thing.  And  the  thought  is  a  trifle  incoherent. 
If  the  good  Spirit  above  the  stars  is  to  pardon  every- 
body, what  becomes  of  the  incentive  to  a  militant  life  ? 
Why  should  one  strive  and  cry  and  get  into  a  feaze 
about  tyrants  and  liars  ? 

The  *  Song  to  Joy  ',  with  music  by  Korner,  was 
published  in  the  second  number  of  the  Thalia,  which, 
after  hanging  fire  for  months,  finally  appeared  in 
February,  1786.  It  contained  also  the  poems  '  Radi- 
calism of  Passion  '  and  *  Resignation  ',  and  a  fresh 
installment  of  *  Don  Carlos  '.  Of  the  prose  contribu- 
tions the  most  important  was  the  story,  '  The  Criminal 
from  Disgrace  ',  later  called  *  The  Criminal  from  Lost 
Honor  '.  It  was  based  upon  a  true  story,  got  from 
Professor  Abel  in  Stuttgart,  concerning  the  life  and 
death  of  a  notorious  Suabian  robber,  named  Schwan, 
who  was  put  to  death  in  1760,  Schiller  changed  the 
name  to  Christian  Wolf  and  built  out  of  the  ugly  facts 
a  strumous  tale  of  criminal  psychology, — the  autopsy 
of  a  depraved  soul,  as  he  called  it.  His  hero  is  a  sort 
of  vulgarized  Karl  Moor;  that  is,  an  enemy  of  society 


Quickened  Interest  in  History  169 

who  might  have  been  its  friend  if  things  had  not  hap- 
pened so  and  so.  The  successive  steps  of  his  descent 
from  mild  resentment  to  malignant  fury,  libertinism 
and  crime,  and  the  reaction  of  his  own  increasing 
depravity  upon  his  own  mind,  are  described  in  a 
manner  which  is  fairly  interesting  from  a  literary  point 
of  view,  whatever  a  modern  expert  criminologist  might 
think  of  it.  The  crux  of  the  ever  difficult  problem, — • 
the  precise  division  of  responsibility  between  society 
and  the  wretch  whom  it  spews  out  of  its  mouth, — is 
brought  clearly  into  view,  but  without  any  attempt  at 
an  exact  solution.  The  tale  is  not  a  homily,  but  an 
object-lesson  designed  to  show  how  things  go.  It  is 
too  slight  an  affair  to  be  worthy  of  extended  comment, 
but  it  shows  Schiller  becoming  interested  in  the 
psychological  analysis  of  conduct.  Moral  goodness 
and  badness  are  beginning  to  appear  less  simple  con- 
cepts, and  the  tangle  of  human  motive  more  intricate, 
than  he  had  supposed. 

Along  with  these  contributions  there  also  appeared 
in  the  second  number  of  the  Thalia  a  translation  of 
the  '  Precis  Historique  ',  prefixed  by  Mercier  to  his 
recently  published  *  Portrait  de  Philippe  Second'. 
The  *  portrait '  itself  was  a  dramatic  picture,  in  fifty-two 
scenes,  without  division  into  acts.  The  work  of 
Mercier,  who  paints  the  Spanish  king  in  the  darkest 
possible  colors,  furnished  a  few  hints  for  '  Don  Carlos  ', 
but  its  influence  was  not  very  great.  What  chiefly 
concerns  us  here  is  to  note  Schiller's  awakening 
interest  in  historical  studies.  In  the  spring  of  1786, 
during  an  absence  of  the  Korners  which  deprived  him 
of  his  wonted  inspiration,  he  found  himself  unable  to 


1 70  The  Boon  of  Friendship 

work.  Letter  after  letter  tells  of  laziness  and  mental 
vacuity.  As  he  could  do  nothing  else  he  took  to 
desultory  reading,  and  this  did  not  satisfy  him. 
*  Really  *,  he  wrote  on  the  15th  of  April: 

Really  I  must  turn  over  a  new  leaf  with  my  reading.  I  feel 
with  pain  that  I  still  have  such  an  astonishing  amount  ^to  learn  ; 
that  I  must  sow  in  order  to  reap.  .  .  .  History  is  becoming 
dearer  to  me  every  day.  I  have  this  week  read  a  history  of  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  and  my  head  is  still  quite  feverish  from  it. 
That  this  epoch  of  the  greatest  national  misery  should  have  been 
at  the  same  time  the  most  brilliant  epoch  of  human  power ! 
What  a  number  of  great  men  came  forth  from  this  night !  I 
could  wish  that  for  the  ten  years  past  I  had  done  nothing  but 
study  history.  I  believe  I  should  have  become  a  very  different 
fellow.  Do  you  think  I  shall  yet  be  able  to  make  up  for  lost 
time  ?^ 

One  sees  from  this  language  by  what  particular  hook 
the  study  of  history  had  taken  hold  of  Schiller's  mind, 
and  what  kind  of  profit  he  was  promising  himself  from 
further  reading.  He  was  interested  in  the  evolution 
of  great  men.  For  him,  as  for  the  poets  always,  from 
Homer  down,  history  resolved  itself  into  the  doings  of 
the  leaders. 

For  the  time  being,  however,  the  new  zeal  seems 
to  have  been  a  mere  flash  in  the  pan,  that  set  nothing 
in  motion.  Nor  was  Korner  able,  for  some  time  to 
come,  to  induce  his  friend  to  make  a  serious  study  of 
Kant's  *  Critique  ',  though  every  third  word  between 
them  was  of  philosophy.  Nevertheless  their  philo- 
sophic debates  did  bear  literary  fruit.  The  third  num- 
ber of  the  Thalia,  which  came  out  in  May,  contained  the 
first  installment  of  the  *  Philosophical  Letters  ',  a  ficti- 
tious correspondence  between  two  friends,  Julius  and 


Letters  of  Julius  and  Raphael  171 

Raphael,  who  have  arrived  by  different  routes  at  the 
same  way  of  thinking,  and  are  resolved  to  tell  the  world 
how  it  all  came  about.  Julius  is  Schiller;  Raphael  is 
Korner,  who  actually  contributed  one  of  the  later 
letters.  We  learn  that  Julius  was  passing  through  a 
spiritual  crisis.  He  was  happy  but  he  had  not  reflated. 
The  little  world  of  his  rapturous  emotions  sufficed  him* 
Now,  however,  Raphael  has  enlightened  his  mind, 
made  him  a  citizen  of  the  world  and  taught  him  to 
comprehend  the  all-sufficient  majesty  of  reason;  but 
he  has  won  enlightenment  at  the  expense  of  peace. 
He  is  miserable  and  demands  back  his  soul.  Raphael 
rebukes  him  gently  for  his  faint-heartedness  and  asks  for 
a  history  of  his  thinking.  So  Julius  rummages  through 
his  papers  and  sends  on  a  somewhat  elaborate  '  The- 
osophy  of  Julius  *, — a  sort  oi precis,  it  would  seem,  of 
Schiller's  earlier  views.  It  is  religious  mysticism  set 
forth  with  warm  eloquence.  The  universe  is  a  thought 
of  God.  The  highest  aim  of  thinking  is  to  read  the 
divine  plan.  All  spirits  are  attracted  by  perfection. 
The  supreme  perfection  is  God,  of  whom  love  is  an 
emanation.  Love  is  gain;  hate  is  loss;  pardon,  the 
recovery  of  lost  property;  misanthropy  a  prolonged 
suicide;  egoism  the  utmost  poverty.  If  every  man 
loved  all  mankind,  every  man  would  possess  the  world. 
If  we  comprehend  perfection  it  becomes  ours.  If  we 
plant  beauty  and  joy,  beauty  and  joy  shall  we  reap. 
If  we  think  clearly  we  shall  love  fervently. 

To  this  *  theosophy  '  Julius  adds  a  few  comments, 
evidently  of  later  origin,  which  show  that  he  has  now 
become  aware  of  its  intellectual  inadequacy.  Still  he 
does  not  repudiate  it.      He  thinks  it  may  do  for  a  doc- 


4 


172  The  Boon  of  Friendship 

trine,  if  one's  nature  is  adapted  to  it. — Herewith,  so 
far  as  Schiller  was  concerned,  the  *  Philosophic  Letters  ' 
came  to  an  end;  but  in  the  spring  of  1788,  Korner 
surprised  him  with  a  letter  by  Raphael,  which  is, 
philosophically  speaking,  by  far  the  best  of  the  entire 
collection.  But  this  book  is  not  concerned  with  the 
writings  of  Korner. 

Ere  the  third  number  of  the  Thalia  appeared  it  had 
become  evident  that  the  enterprise  would  not  be  profit- 
able, and  its  perplexed  editor  was  in  doubt  whether  to 
continue  it.  He  finally  decided  to  go  on.  When  the 
fourth  number  came  out,  early  in  1787,  it  contained 
the  beginning  of  a  novel,  *  The  Ghostseer  ',  wherein  a 
mysterious  Sicilian,  and  a  still  more  mysterious 
Armenian,  dog  the  footsteps  of  a  German  Prince  von 
*  *  *  living  at  Venice,  and  do  various  things  suggest- 
ing a  connection  with  occult  powers.  The  first  install- 
ment of  the  story  broke  off  at  a  very  exciting  point, — 
just  when  the  Sicilian  has  produced  his  amazing  ghost- 
scene,  but  has  not  yet  been  unmasked  as  a  vulgar 
fraud.  Schiller  evidently  began  the  novel  in  no  very 
strenuous  frame  of  mind.  He  wished  to  profit  by  the 
popular  interest  in  tales  of  mysterious  charlatanry 
which  had  been  aroused  by  the  exploits  of  Cagliostro. 
So  he  set  out  to  spin  a  yarn  in  that  vein,  but  he  had 
no  definite  plan  and  did  not  himself  know  where  he 
would  bring  up.  The  literary  merits  of  '  The  Ghost- 
seer', Schiller's  most  noteworthy  attempt  in  prose 
fiction,  will  come  up  for  consideration  in  connection 
with  the  conclusion,  or  rather  the  continuation,  which 
he  published  some  two  years  later,  when  he  had  left 
Dresden  to  seek  his  fortune  in  Weimar. 


A  Dramatic  Skit  173 

Even  now  the  necessity  of  seeking  his  fortune  some- 
where was  daily  becoming  more  imperious.  The 
Thalia  did  not  pay,  though  the  critics  spoke  well  of 
it,  and  he  could  not  live  forever  upon  Korner's  friendly 
advances  of  money.  The  sense  of  his  dependence 
often  galled  him;  and  yet  when  a  proposal,  in  itself 
highly  attractive,  came  to  him  from  a  distant  city,  he 
could  not  pluck  up  courage  to  leave  his  friend.  Fried-^ 
rich  Schroder,  the  greatest  German  actor  of  the  time, 
wished  to  draw  him  to  Hamburg.  Schiller  looked  up 
to  Schroder  with  genuine  admiration  and  speculatively 
promised  himself  great  gain  from  association  with  *  the 
one  man  in  Germany  who  could  realize  all  his  ideas  of 
art.'  In  Mannheim, — so  he  wrote  in  October,  1786, 
— he  had  lost  all  his  enthusiasm  for  the  theater ;  it  was 
now  beginning  to  revive,  but  he  shuddered  at  the 
treatment  to  which  playwrights  were  exposed  by 
theatrical  people.  Moreover  he  was  living  at  Dresden 
*  in  the  bosom  of  a  family  to  which  he  had  become 
necessary*.  So  nothing  came  of  the  negotiations 
except  the  preparation  of  a  stage  version  of  *  Don 
Carlos  '  for  the  Hamburg  theater. 

An  amusing  glimpse  of  domestic  conditions  in  the 
Korner  household  is  afforded  by  Schiller's  dramatic 
skit,  entitled  *  Korner's  Forenoon  '.  It  belongs  ap- 
parently to  the  year  1787,  but  was  not  published  until 
1862.  The  busy  councillor  of  the  Dresden  Consistory 
sees  a  little  leisure  before  him  and  squares  off  at  his 
desk  for  a  solid  forenoon's  work.  He  begins  by  order- 
ing his  man  to  shave  him.  Then  he  is  interrupted  by 
a  procession  of  callers, — Schiller,  in  various  roles,  and 
Minna,  and  Dorchen,  and  Professor  Becker  and  others. 


174  The  Boon  of  Friendship 

— who  keep  the  stream  of  babble  flowing  until  one 
o'clock.  Korner  is  too  late  for  the  consistory  and  all 
that  he  has  accomplished  is  to  get  shaved.  The  piece 
is  a  slight  affair,  but  there  is  enough  of  solemn  fun  in 
it  to  make  one  wish  that  its  author  had  seen  fit  to  work 
his  lighter  vein  more  frequently. 

About  the  time  when  this  facetious  bagatelle  was 
penned,  or  a  little  earlier  perhaps,  Schiller  became  the 
hero  of  a  comedy  in  real  life.  In  the  winter  of  1787 
he  attended  a  masked  ball  where  he  met  a  pretty 
domino — a  plump  voluptuous  maiden — who  fascinated 
him.  Her  name  was  Henriette  von  Arnim.  He  fol- 
lowed up  the  acquaintance  and  was  soon  quite  seriously 
interested.  As  the  Arnim  family  did  not  enjoy  the 
best  of  reputations,  the  Korners  were  annoyed  at 
Schiller's  seeming  lack  of  connoisseurship  in  women. 
They  contrived  to  let  him  know  that  on  the  evenings 
when  Henriette  was  not  at  home  to  him  she  was  at 
home  to  a  certain  earthy  Count  Waldstein,  or  to  a 
certain  Jew  banker,  as  the  case  might  be.  This  was 
painful,  but  not  immediately  decisive,  and  miserable 
days  ensued.  In  the  spring  he  was  persuaded  to  try 
a  few  weeks'  outing  in  the  country.  Here  he  was  at 
first  frightfully  lonesome, — a  dejected  Robinson  Crusoe, 
who  could  neither  work  nor  amuse  himself.  To  his 
pathetic  demands  for  reading-matter  his  friends  replied 
with  malicious  humor  by  sending  him  Goethe's 
*  Werther '  and  Laclos's  'Liaisons  Dangereuses '. 
After  a  while  the  Arnims  followed  him,  but  presently 
the  count  came  also ;  and  then  the  course  of  true  love, 
thus  awkwardly  bifurcated,  was  more  troubled  than 
ever.     After  Henriette 's  return  to  Dresden  there  was 


From  Dresden  to  Weimar  175 

an  interchange  of  letters,  wherein  love  fought  a  losing 
battle  with  doubt  and  suspicion. 

This  half-year  of  amatory  perturbation  was  of  course 
unfavorable  to  literary  labor.  No  further  numbers  of 
the  Thalia  appeared,  and  'The  Misanthrope',  a  new 
play  of  excellent  promise,  made  no  progress.  But 
*  Don  Carlos  '  did  at  last  get  itself  completed — after  a 
fashion.  It  was  published  early  in  the  summer.  And 
now,  with  this  burden  lifted,  the  time  seemed  to  have 
arrived  for  carrying  out  the  long-cherished  plan  of  a 
visit  to  Weimar.  Who  could  tell  what  might  come  of 
it  ?  Korner  was  just  as  loyal  as  ever,  but  he  was  also 
wise  enough  to  respect  his  friend's  longing  for  a  more 
assured  and  less  dependent  existence.  And  so  in  July 
Schiller  set  out  for  Thuringen, — to  be  seen  no  more 
in  Dresden  save  as  an  occasional  visitor.  But  the 
letters  he  wrote  to  the  noble-minded  friend  who  had 
done  and  been  so  much  for  him  constitute,  for  several 
years  to  come,  our  best  source  of  information  concern- 
ing his  outward  fortune  and  his  inner  history.  Before 
we  follow  him  to  Weimar,  however,  it  will  be  in  order 
to  consider  the  play  which  remains  as  the  most  im- 
portant achievement  of  his  Dresden  period. 


CHAPTER   IX 
S>on  Carloa 

Arm  in  Arm  mit  dir, 
So  fordr '  ich  mein  Jahrhundert  in  die  Schranken. 

'Don  Carlos'. 

With  the  publication  of  *  Don  Carlos  '  Schiller's 
literary  reputation  entered  upon  a  new  phase.  Hitherto 
he  had  been  known  as  a  playwright  in  whom  the  passion 
for  strong  effects  often  obscured  the  sense  of  artistic 
fitness.  Of  his  dramatic  power  there  could  be  no 
doubt,  but  had  he  the  higher  gift  of  the  great  poet  ? 
Would  he  ever  be  able  to  clothe  his  conceptions  in  a 
form  that  would  appeal  permanently  to  the  general 
heart  because  of  high  and  rare  artistic  excellence  ? 
Doubts  of  this  kind  were  quite  justifiable  up  to  the  year 
1787,  but  they  were  set  at  rest  by  *  Don  Carlos  *. 
"However  vulnerable  it  may  be  as  a  poetic  totality,  it 
has  passages  that  are  magnificent.  Its  sonorous  verse, 
wedded  to  a  lofty  argument  and  freighted  with  the 
noblest  idealism  of  the  century,  made  sure  its  author's 
title  to  a  place  in  the  Walhalla  of  the  poets. 

Except  *  Wallenstein  '  no  other  work  of  Schiller 
cost  him  such  long  and  strenuous  toil.  *  Don  Carlos  ', 
like  Goethe's  'Faust',  is  a  stratified  deposit.  The 
J;ime  that  went  to  the  making  of  it,  only  four  years  in 
all,  was  comparatively  short,  but  it  was  for  Schiller  a 

176 


scmili.hr  -;^,£^knty-eicht 

iting  br  Gt\i 


CHAPTER   IX 
0ott  Carlod 


m  mit  dir. 
hranken. 
*Don  Carlos 


ured  the  st. 

;)Ower  there   couid   bt*    iio 

r  gift  of  the  great  poet  ? 

lothe  his  conceptions  in  a 

icntly  to  the  general 

ic  excellence  ? 

•X)  ^^  the  vcar 

liey  were  set  at   n 

ible  it  n  a 

with  the 

.^  author's 

ts. 

>rk    of  Schiller 

h  long  and  s^  oil.      ♦  Don  Caj 

>    'Faust',    ia   a  stratified   deposit.     The 


Schiller^s  Explanation  177 

time  of  rapid  change ;  and  the  play,  intensely  subjec- 
tive from  the  first,  jparjicipated  in  the  ripening  process.^ 
The  result  is  a  certain  lack  of  artistic  congruity. 
Schiller  himself,  always  his  own  best  critic,  felt  this 
and  frankly  admitted  it  in  the  first  of  his  '  Letters  upon 
Don  Carlos  '. 

It  may  be  [he  wrote]  that  in  the  first  [three]  acts  I  have 
aroused  expectations  which  the  last  do  not  fulfill.  St.  Real's 
novel,  perhaps  also  my  own  remarks  upon  it  in  the  first  number 
of  the  Thalia,  may  have  suggested  to  the  reader  a  standpoint 
from  which  the  work  can  no  longer  be  regarded.  During  the 
period  of  elaboration,  which  on  account  of  divers  interruptions 
was  a  pretty  long  time,  much  changed  w^ithin  myself.  .  .  .  What 
had  mainly  attracted  me  at  first,  attracted  me  less  later  on,  and 
at  last  hardly  at  all.  New  ideas  that  came  into  my  mind  crowded 
out  the  earlier  ones.  Carlos  himself  had  declined  in  my  favor, 
for  no  other  reason  perhaps  than  that  I  had  outgrown  him,  and 
for  the  opposite  reason  the  Marquis  of  Posa  had  taken  his  place. 
So  it  came  about  that  I  brought  a  very  different  heart  to  the 
fourth  and  fifth  acts.  Yet  the  first  three  were  already  in  the 
hands  of  the  public,  and  the  plan  of  the  whole  could  not  be  re- 
cast ;  I  had  either  to  suppress  the  piece  entirely  (for  which  very 
few  of  my  readers  would  have  thanked  me),  or  else  to  fit  the 
second  half  to  the  first  as  best  I  could. 

Let  us  look  somewhat  closely  at  the  process  of 
evolution  here  alluded  to  in  general  terms. 

The  original  impulse  came  from  a  work  of  romantic 
fiction,  the  *^Dom  Carlos  '  of  St.  ReaU  which  was  first 
read  by  Schiller  in  the  summer  of  1782  and  drew  from 
him  the  comment  that  the  story  *  deserved  the  brush 
of  a  dramatist'.  St.  Real's  novel, begins  by  telling 
how  Charles  the  Fifth  arranged,  just  before  his  abdica- 
tion, that  his  grandson  Carlos  should  some  day  marry 


178  Don  Carlos 

Elizabeth  of  Valois ;  and  how  afterwards  Philip  deter- 
mined to  take  the  French  princess  for  his  own  wife 
instead  of  leaving  her  to  his  son.  Meanwhile,  how- 
ever, by  much  gazing  at  the  picture  of  his  betrothed, 
young  Carlos  had  learned  to  love  her,  and  she  in  turn 
had  conceived  for  him  a  '  disposition  to  love  rather  than 
a  veritable  passion  '.  Arrived  at  the  Spanish  court 
the  young  queen  wins  all  hearts ;  even  the  white-haired 
Philip  falls  in  love  with  her,  though  he  treats  her  with 
stately  reserve  in  the  presence  of  others  and  surrounds 
her  with  the  restraints  of  Spanish  etiquette.  Thus  the 
queen  comes  to  feel  that  she  possesses  *  only  the  body 
of  her  husband,  his  soul  being  filled  with  the  designs 
of  his  ambition  and  the  meditation  of  his  policy  ' .  As 
for  Carlos,  his  love-lorn  eyes  soon  betray  to  her  how 
it  is  with  him,  but  she  can  only  pity  him,  though  she 
secretly  returns  his  love,  for  she  is  as  virtuous  as  she  is 
beautiful. 

Not  so  the  Princess  EboH,  wife  o£Ruy  Gomez,  the 
tutor  of  Carlos.  Having  tried  to  win  the  love  of  the 
king  and  found  her  designs  thwarted  by  the  queen's 
beauty,  Eboli  makes  advances  to  Prince  Carlos,  who 
lets  her  know  that  he  cannot  love  her  and  thus  makes 
her  angry.  In  this  mood  she  bestows  her  favor  upon 
the  king's  half-brother,  Don  Juan  of  Austria,  who 
is  also  enamored  of  the  queen  and  has  been  watch- 
ing Carlos  suspiciously.  Having  thus  made  enemies 
of  Eboli  and  Don  Juan,  Carlos  next  draws  upon  him- 
self the  hatred  of  the  powerful  Duke  of  Alva,  of  Ruy 
Gomez,  and  of  the  Inquisition.  This  he  does  by  his 
outspoken  criticism  of  their  doings  and  his  threats 
of  punishment   to  be    meted  out   to  them  when   he 


SU  Real's  Dom  Carlos 


179 


shall  have  become  king.  Anxious  for  their  own 
future  Alva  and  Ruy  Gomez  conspire  together  and 
cause  suspicions  of  Carlos  to  be  whispered  in  the  ear 
of  the  king.  At  first  Philip  is  not  greatly  excited. 
When  Carlos,  importuned  by  Count  Egmont,  asks  for 
a  commission  to  the  Netherlands,  Philip  does  not  re- 
fuse, but  declares  that  he  will  go  too  and  share  the 
peril  of  his  son.  This,  however,  is  a  mere  ruse  to  gain 
time.  While  they  are  waiting,  the  king  meanwhile 
feigning  illness,  Carlos  communicates  freely  with  the 
queen  through  his  bosom  friend,  the  Marquis  of  Posa. 
Hearing  of  this  intimacy  the  king  now  becomes  really 
jealous,  but  of  Posa  not  of  Carlos.  Maddened  by  sus- 
picion he  has  the  marquis  murdered  on  the  street  and 
employs  Eboli  to  watch  the  queen.  After  this  Carlos 
resolves  upon  independent  action  and  begins  to  nego- 
tiate with  the  Netherlanders.  His  operations  are 
watched  and  reported  by  his  enemies,  and  just  as  he 
is  about  to  leave  Spain  he  is  arrested.  The  king 
places  his  case  before  the  Holy  Office,  which  decrees 
that  he  must  die.  Being  allowed  to  choose  the  man- 
ner of  his  death  he  opens  his  veins  while  bathing.' 

With  the  actual  Don  Carlos,  whose  story  bears  but 
little  resemblance  to  that  of  St.  Real's  hero,  we  are 
not  particularly  concerned.  The  French  Abbe's  drift 
is  to  exalt  the  French  princess  and  to  give  a  telling 
picture  of  a  pair  of  high-minded  lovers  who  are  brought 
to  their  death  by  a  complicate  intrigue  begotten  of 
jealousy,  political  hatred  and  religious  fanaticism,  l^ 
After  the  death  of  Carlos  the  queen  is  poisoned  and 
then,  one  after  the  other,  all  the  conspirators  meet 
with   poetic  justice.     "Ainsi",   the  Abbe   concludes, 


i8o  Don  Carlos 

"furent  expiees  les  morts  k  jamais  deplorables  d'un 
prince  magnanime,  et  de  la  plus  belle  et  de  la  plus 
vertueuse  princesse  qui  fut  jamais.  C'est  ainsi  que 
leurs  ombres  infortunees  furent  enfin  pleinement  ap- 
paisees  par  les  funestes  destinees  de  tous  les  complices 
de  leur  trepas." 

St.  Real's  novel  was  published  in  1672  and  has  been 
a  favorite  quarry  of  the  dramatist.  Of  the  plays  of 
Otway  (1676)  and  Campistron  (1685)  Schiller  had  no 
knowledge,  nor  did  he  receive  any  suggestions  from 
the  fierce  and  gloomy  *  Filippo '  of  Alfieri,  which  ap- 
peared in  1783.  He  approached  the  subject  in  his 
own  way  and  his  first  thought  was  simply  to  dramatize 
St.  Real,  who  is  mainly  interested  in  the  love  tragedy 
and  writes  as  a  literary  artist  rather  than  as  a  political 
or  religious  pamphleteer.  We  possess  a  prose  out- 
line ^  of  '  Don  Carlos ',  written  probably  at  Bauerbach, 
which  shows  exactly  how  the  theme  first  bit  into 
Schiller's  mind.  The  exposition  was  to  show  the 
secret  passion  of  the  lovers  and  the  dangers  threatening 
them  from  the  jealousy  of  Philip,  the  political  hostility 
of  the  grandees  and  the  malice  of  the  slighted  Eboli. 
In  the  third  act  the  king  would  become  madly  suspi- 
cious and  resolve  upon  his  son's  death.  Then  there 
was  to  be  a  gleam  of  hope :  the  ambition  of  Carlos 
would  awaken  and  begin  to  prevail  over  his  love, 
while  Posa  would  divert  the  king's  suspicion  to  himself 
and  fall  a  sacrifice  to  friendship.  Then  a  new  danger 
would  arise  :  the  king  would  discover  Don  Carlos  in  a 
seeming  '  rebellion ',  and  decree  his  death.  The  dying 
declaration  of  Carlos  would  prove  his  innocence  and 

*  It  is  printed  in  Samtliche  Schriften,  III,  180. 


The  Original  Plan  i8i 

the  king  would  be  left  alone  to  mourn  the  havoc  he 
had  wrought  and  to  punish  the  conspirators  who  had 
deceived  him. 

This  sketch  promises,  it  will   be   observed,  not  a 
political  tragedy,   but,  as  Schiller  himself  afterwards 
phrased  it,  a  *  domestic  tragedy  in  a  royal  household  *.  f/^ 
Springing  up  from  the  same  soil  and  at  the  same  time 
as  *  Cabal  and  Love ',  it  was  to  be  much  the  same  sort 
of  play.     In  both  a  pair   of  high-minded   lovers  be- 
longing together  by  natural  affinity,  but  separated  by     \ 
artificial  barriers  ;  the  rights  of  passion  battling  in  the 
one  case  with  social  prejudice,  in  the  other  with  the 
law  of  Rome  and  the  malice  of  courtiers  ;  in  both  a    / 
court  plot  against  the  lovers  ;  the  hero  beset  by  a  fair 
sinner  who  receives  him  in  her   private   room,  lays 
siege  to  him,  and  is  angered  by  the  slighting  of  her 
love  ;  in  both  a  tyrannical  and  headstrong  father  at 
enmity  with  his  son.     Of  the  political  ideas  which  the 
world  associates  with  *  Don  Carlos '  there  is  here  no 
adumbration.     We  hear  nothing  of  the  Netherlanders, 
nor  of  the  Inquisition,  nor  of  the  rights  of  man.     Posa  ^ 
is  only  a  friend  of  Carlos,  not  the  ambassador  of  all 
mankind,  and  there  is  no  room  for  his  golden  dreams 
of  philanthropic  statesmanship.     And  yet  it  is  worth— /p  J 
noticing  thatJrMthj;^pointe  the  third  act)  Schil-        "^  ^ 

ler  adds  to  his  French  source  :  Carlos's  ambition  was 
to  waken  and  prevail  over  his  love,  Posa  was  to  sacri- 
fice himself,  and  the  lovers  were  to  rise  superior  to 
their  passion. 

However,  no  sooner  did  our  playwright  address 
himself  seriously  to  his  task  than  his  imagination 
began   to  break   over   the  bounds  he  had  set  for  it. 


i82  Don  Carlos 

Even  at  Bauerbach,  as  his  letters  show,  his  mind  was 
occupied  with  the  thought  of  *  avenging  mankind '  by- 
scourging  the  gloomy  despotism  of  Philip,  the  mon- 
strous cruelty  of  Alva,  the  dark  intrigues  of  the  Jesuits 
and  the  hideous  crimes  of  the  Inquisition.  That  he 
made  any  progress  in  the  spring  of  1783,  further  than 
to  cogitate  upon  his  general  plan  and  to  fall  in  love 
with  his  hero,  is  not  probable  ;  nor  do  his  Mannheim 
letters  allude  to  'Don  Carlos'  until  June,  1784.  In  a 
letter  of  that  date  he  assures  Dalberg, — mindful  of  that 
good  man's  trials  in  connection  with  '  Cabal  and  Love  ', 
— that  the  new  play  will  be  *  anything  but  a  political 
piece '.  Whatever  could  offend  the  feelings  was  to  be 
strictly  avoided.  August  24  he  writes  that  '  Don 
Carlos  '  is  a  *  splendid  subject ',  especially  for  himself. 
Four  great  characters,  Carlos,  Philip,  the  queen,  and 
Alva  (no  mention  of  Posa)  open  before  him  a  boundless 
field.  He  cannot  forgive  himself  for  having  tried  to 
shine  in  the  bourgeois  drama,  where  another  may  easily 
surpass  him  (this  in  allusion  to  Iffland),  whereas  in 
historical  tragedy  he  need  fear  no  rival.  He  adds  that 
he  is  now  fairly  master  of  the  iambic,  form  and  that  the 
verse  cannot  fail  to  impart  splendor  and  dignity. 
f  So  we  see  that  by  the  end  of  his  first  year  in  Mann- 
heim Schiller  had  indeed  undergone  a  change.  The 
saeva  indignatio  of  the  dramatic  pamphleteer  had  given 
way  to  the  serener  mood  of  the  poetic  artist.  This 
change  would  doubtless  have  come  about  under  any 
circumstances,  through  the  natural  ripening  of  his 
i  mind  and  art,  but  it  was  hastened  by  the  influence  of 
j  Klein  and  Wieland,  and  by  the  example  of  Lessing's 
K*  Nathan '.     Anton  von   Klein,  a  Jesuit  bel  esprit  liv- 


Ripening  Influences  183 

ing  at  Mannheim,  was  a  steadfast  champion  of  the 
regular  heroic  tragedy.  He  had  written  a  searching 
review  of  *  The  Robbers ',  pointing  out  its  many  faults 
and  absurdities,  but  he  recognized  Schiller's  talent  and 
saw  in  him  a  man  worth  converting.  At  Mannheim  a 
friendship  sprang  up  between  the  two,  and  Schiller 
heard  much  talk  about  the  superior  merit  of  the  noble 
poetic  style, — a  region  of  thought  in  which  he  had 
hitherto  wandered  but  little.  He  had  written  thus  far 
out  of  the  fervor  of  his  soul,  and  theory  of  any  sort  had 
touched  him. but  little.  From  Rousseauite  literature 
he  had  caught  a  fantastic  conception  of  *  nature ',  and 
this  had  led  him  to  portray  men  and  women  who  were 
scarcely  more  natural  than  those  of  Gottsched  himself. 
In  the  rush  of  feeling  he  had  enlisted  among  the  young 
revolutionists  whose  stormy  and  stressful  tendency, 
curiously  enough,  was  regarded  as  *  English '.  And 
now  he  found  that  there  was  after  all  something  to  be 
said  in  favor  of  the  classical  French  type.  The  '  anglo- 
maniacs '  were  not  in  possession  of  the  whole  truth. 
Might  there  not  be,  perhaps,  a  tertium  quid, — a  German 
drama  having  a  character  of  its  own  and  combining  the 
literary  dignity  and  artistic  finish  of  the  French  with 
the  warmth  and  variety  of  the  pseudo-English  school } 
As  if  in  answer  to  this  query,  Lessing's  *  Nathan  '^  pub- 
lished in  1779,  had  already  opened  a  vista  of  limitless 
possibilities.     And  *  Nathan  '  was  in  blank  verse. 

To  this  was  added  the  influence  of  Wieland,  who  had 
lately  published  a  series  of '  Letters  to  a  Young  Poet  V 
in  which  he  read  his  contemporaries  a  lecture  on  the 
absurdity   of  their   boasting   over   the    French.      He 

*  In  the  Teutsche  Merkur  for  October,  1782. 


1 84  Don  Carlos 

wanted  to  know  where  the  German  dramas  were  that 
could  compare  with  the  best  works  of  Racine,  Corneille 
and  Moliere.  He  insisted  that  a  perfect  drama  no  less 
than  a  perfect  epic  must  be  in  verse.  Even  rime  in 
his  opinion  was  indispensable.  Such  doctrine  com- 
ing from  a  man  of  Wieland's  immense  authority  in  lit- 
erary matters  could  not  fail  to  influence  the  groping 
mind  of  Schiller,  though  he  could  not  stomach  the  de- 
mand for  rime.  The  blank  verse  of  Shakspere  and 
Lessing  seemed  to  promise  best,  and  so  he  set  about 
practicing  upon  it.  At  first  the  meter  gave  him  great 
difficulty  ;  he  could  not  subdue  his  strong  passion  and 
his  wild  tropes  to  the  even  tenor  of  the_  decasyllabic, 
cadence.  Then  followed  his  decision  to  publish  his 
play  piecemeal  in  the  Thalia^ — an  unfortunate  decision 
as  it  proved.  His  hope  was  to  profit  betimes  by  what 
his  critics  might  say.  He  was  in  a  mood  of  boundless 
docility  and  boundless  confidence  in  the  public.  Re- 
solved to  write  *  no  verses  that  could  not  be  submitted 
to  the  best  heads  in  the  nation  *,  he  fondly  imagined 
that  the  nation  would  be  as  eager  to  help  him  as  he 
was  eager  to  be  helped.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  got  but 
little  assistance  from  the  critic  tribe,  and  his  piecemeal 
publication  only  served  to  embarrass  him  when  he 
came  to  the  final  redaction  of  the  whole. 

In  the  short  preface  which  introduced  the  first 
installment  to  the  public,  Schiller  ventured  the  opinion 
that  the  excellence  of  his  tragedy  would  depend  mainly 
upon  his  success  in  portraying  the  king.  The  situation 
of  Carlos  and  the  queen  was  interesting,  he  thought,  but 
not  tragically  pathetic  ;  it  would  be  difficult  to  create 
sympathy  for  them.     If,  however,  King  Philip  was  to 


Changes  of  Conception  185 

be  the  center  of  tragic  interest,  it  was  evident  that  he 
could  not  be  depicted,  in  accordance  with  a  one-sided 
tradition,  as  a  repellent  monster.  From  these  and  other 
expressions  in  the  same  essay  we  can  see  that  Schiller 
was  growing  cool  toward  his  hero.  He  felt  that 
the  troubles  of  Carlos  and  the  queen  could  not  be  re- 
garded under  the  Rousseauite  scheme  of  natural  pas- 
sion battling  with  odious  convention,  but  that  the 
passion  was  itself  odious.  He  felt  that  a  young  prince, 
pining  and  whining  and  plunging  himself  into  disaster 
all  on  account  of  an  illicit  and  mawkish  love  for  his 
stepmother,  was  not  a  very  inspiring  personage  to  be 
the  hero  of  a  great  historical  drama.  The  solution  of 
the  problem  seemed  for  the  moment  to  lie  in  a  '  rescue ' 
of  King  Philip.  So  the  love-tragedy  in  a  royal  house- 
hold began  to  take  on  more  than  ever  the  character 
of  a  political  tragedy,  the  promise  to  Dalberg  being 
quickly  forgotten.  When  he  began  to  publish,  how- 
ever, his  political  program  was  still  rather  vague  and 
negative  ;  it  hardly  went  beyond  the  intention  to  be- 
stow an  incidental  scourging  upon  the  enemies  of  man-^^ 
kind  in  church  and  state.  — ^ 

Then  came  the  influence  of  j^ocxifij::,  the  effect  of 
which  was  to  give  great  prominence  to  the  character 
of  Posa  as  a  positive  champion  of  the  right,  and  to 
make  him  for  a  while  the  real  hero  of  the  play. 
There  seems  at  first  blush  but  little  resemblance 
between  the  fanatical  idealist  of  Schiller's  imagination 
and  the  sensible  Dresden  lawy^er,  but  the  Korner 
strain  in  Posa  is  unmistakable.  In  his  intercourse  with 
Schiller  he  was  evermore  insisting  on  the  importance 
of  doing  something  for  mankind.     Enthusiasm,  love, 


1 86  Don  Carlos 

friendship,  sentiment  of  any  kind,  were  valuable  in  his 
estimation  only  as   sources  of  inspiration  for   telling 
activity.     As  matters  of  mere  private  ecstasy,  of  froth 
and  foam  rising  and  falling  to  no  effect  in  the  turmoil 
of  the  individual   soul,  they  were  for  him  objects   of 
mild  derision.     And  the  idea  that  lay  nearest  his  heart 
as  a  student  of  Kant  was  the  idea  of  freedom.     And 
so,  as  Schiller  worked  upon  his  play  at  Dresden,  Posa 
was   made   the  exponent  of  the    new  point  of  view. 
He  became  the  teacher  of  the  unripe  Carlos,  even  as 
Korner  had  been  the  teacher  of  the  unripe  Schiller  ; 
the  subduer  of  unmanly  emotionalism  ;  the  apostle  of 
renunciation  ;  the  pointer  of  the  way  to  great  deeds  ; 
the  prophet  of  a  free  humanity  to  come.     In  the  bril- 
liant light  thus  thrown  upon  Posa  the  other  heroes 
f,  were   somewhat  obscured.      The  poet's  original  love, 
I    Don  Carlos,  and  his  second  love,  Don  Philip,  had  to 
I    make  way  for  a  third  passion  that  was  stronger  than 
V  either  of  the  others. 

The  four  installments  of  'Don  Carlos'  that  were 
printed  in  the  Thalia,  up  to  the  end  of  1786,  comprised 
in  all  three  acts.  They  carried  the  action  to  the  point 
where  the  king,  lonely  amid  sycophants  and  deceivers, 
sighs  for  a  '  man  *  to  counsel  him.  The  great  scene 
between  Posa  and  Philip  was  yet  to  come  in  Act  IV. 
The  matter  already  in  print  contained  more  than  four 
thousand  verses,  and  several  scenes  had  only  been 
sketched  in  prose.  At  this  rate  it  was  evident  that  the 
play  would  reach  twice  the  length  of  a  regular  tragedy 
and  would  be  an  impossibility  on  the  stage.  Schiller 
began  to  see  that  his  impatience  of  stage  restrictions 
and  his  subjective  interest  in  certain    situations    had 


Completion  of  the  Play  187 

done  him  an  evil  turn.  He  had  been  deplorably  long- 
winded.  And  just  then  came  out  a  caustic  review 
which  showed  him  that  he  had  committed  other  sins 
than  those  of  prolixity.^  Nevertheless  he  did  not  now 
have  recourse  to  that  drastic  surgery  whereby,  in  the 
edition  of  180 1,  he  reduced  the  unwieldy  play  to  more 
manageable  dimensions.^  Without  any  radical  revision 
of  the  part  already  in  print,  he  completed  the  last  two 
acts  as  best  he  could,  with  Minerva  often  unwilling. 
Posa  was  made  to  gain  the  king's  confidence,  to  become 
seemingly  omnipotent,  and  in  the  pride  of  his  imagined 
strength  to  enter  upon  that  desperate  game  of  intrigue 
and  double-dealing  which  involves  himself  and  his 
cause  and  his  helpless  friend,  Don  Carlos,  in  final 
disaster. 

Thus  St.  Real's  pathetic  tale  of  love  and  intrigue 
had  been  left  far  behind,  and  out  of  it  had  come  a  trag- 
edy  of  amiable  politLcal  idealism,  growing  insolent  with 
self-confidence  and  losing  touch  with  present  realities 
in  its  dazzling  dream  of  things  to  come. 

*  The  soul  of  Shakspere's  Hamlet,  the  blood  and 
nerves  of  Leisewitz's  Julius,  the  pulse  of  Schiller  him- 
self ', — this,  it  will  be  recalled,  was  the  original  formula 
for  the  composition  of  Prince  Carlos.  But,  alas,  the 
soul  of  one  of  Shakspere's  heroes  is  not  so  easily  pur- 
loined, and  Schiller  did  not  succeed  well  in  his  pro- 
posed larceny.     What  we  find  is  not  the  soul  but  the 

»  In  the  Neue  Bibliothek  der  schdnen  Wissenschaften,  Vol.  XXXII; 
reprinted  by  Braun,  ' '  Schiller  und  Goethe  im  Urteile  ihrer  Zeitge- 
nossen  ",  I,  152  fF. 

2  The  fragments  published  in  the  Thalia  contained  4140  lines  ;  the 
editio  princeps  oi  1787,  6283;  the  edition  of  1801,  this  being  the  form 
in  which  the  play  is  usually  read,  5370^ 


i88  Don  Girlos 

situation  of  Hamlet :  a  young  prince  just  returned  from 
the  university, — troubled  by  a  strange  melancholy, — a 
mystery  to  king  and  court, — beset  by  spies  whom  he 
sends  packing, — visited  by  a  dear  academic  friend, — 
called  to  a  great  work  to  which  he  feels  himself  un- 
equal, and  so  forth.  The  parallel  is  obvious,  but  it 
hardly  goes  beyond  externalities.  Nor  does  the  por- 
trait of  Carlos  owe  very  much  that  is  vital  to  Leisewitz. 
He  gives  us,  to  be  sure,  a  love-sick  prince  whose  illicit 
passion  unnerves  him,  and  like  Carlos  Julius  has  a 
friend  who  admonishes  him  to  be  a  man.  But  there 
the  resemblance  ends  ;  he  has  not  the  strength  to  re- 
nounce and  remains  to  the  end  a  sentimental  weakling. 
(The  truth  is  that  the  soul,  pulse,  blood  and  nerves 
of  Carlos  are  simply  Schiller's  own.  There  is  no  other 
creation  of  his  into  which  he  put  so  much  of  himself. 
That  feeling  of  dark  despair  and  dead  ambition  to 
which  Carlos  gives  expression  in  his  first  dialogue  with 
Posa  is  but  a  poetic  echo  of  actual  experiences. 

I  too  have  known  a  Carlos  in  my  dreams 

Whose  cheek  flushed  crimson  when  he  heard  the  name 

Of  Freedom.     But  that  Carl  is  dead  and  buried, — 

sighs  the  Spanish  prince.  *  I  might  perhaps  have  be- 
come great,  but  fate  took  the  field  against  me  too 
early.  .  .  .  Love  and  esteem  me  for  that  which  I  might 
have  become  under  more  favorable  stars  ',  —  writes 
the  actual  Schiller.^  And  just  as  Carlos  throws  him- 
self into  the  arms  of  Posa  and  thinks  to  find  his  all  in 
friendship,  so  Schiller  hoped  inefiable  things  from 
Korner.     Nowhere    else   in    literature   has   the    eigh- 

*  Letter  to  Reinwald  April  14,  1783. 


Character  of  Carlos  189 

teenth-century  cult  of  friendship  found  such  fervid,  and 
in  the  main  such  noble,  expression  as  in  *  Don  Carlos '. 
It  may  indeed  be  fairly  objected  that,  in  view  of  what 
is  to  come  later,  the  Carlos  of  the  first  act  is  a  little 
too  soft  even  for  the  sentimental  age.  We  are  required 
to  have  faith  in  his  heroic  capacity  for  enterprises  of 
great  pith  and  moment.  But  after  his  first  dialogue 
with  Posa  it  is  as  difficult  for  the  reader  or  spectator 
to  trust  him  as  it  is  for  King  Philip.  His  lacrimose'' 
ragtures  over  so  simple  a  thing  as  a  youthful  friend- 
ship ;  his  abject  confession  of  despair  and  dependence  ; 
his  long-drawn-out  revelation  of  a  sick  heart,  and  his 
morbid  craving  for  sympathy  in  a  passion  which  he 
himself  feels  to  be  abominable, — all  this  suggests  a 
cankered  soul  of  which  there  can  be  little  hope.^ 
Hamlet  greets  the  returning  Horatio  with  the  simple 
words  : 

Sir,  my  good  friend.     I'll  change  that  name  with  you. 

The  corresponding  passage  in  Schiller  runs  ; 

Can  it  be  ? 
Is't  true  ?     Is't  possible  ?     'Tis  really  thou. 
I  press  thee  to  my  heart  and  feel  the  beat 
Of  thine  omnipotent  against  my  own. 
Now  all  is  well  again. — In  this  embrace 
The  sickness  of  my  soul  is  cured.     I  lie 
Upon  my  Roderick's  neck. 

One  does  not  see  how  such  pitiful  weakness  is  all  at 
once  to  be  converted  into  manly  strength  by  the  mere 
arrival  of  a  friend  ;  wherefore  that  fine  saying  of  Car- 
los which  closes  the  first  act. 


190  Don  Carlos 

Arm  in  arm  with  thee, 
I  hurl  defiance  at  my  century, 

sounds  a  trifle  bombastic. 

So  again  at  his  first  meeting  with  Elizabeth,  Carlos 
is  distressingly  mawkish.  She  pictures  him,  in  pity- 
ing indignation,  as  succeeding  to  the  throne,  undoing 
his  father's  work  and  at  last  marrying  herself.  Then 
he  exclaims  in  sudden  horror  : 

Accursed  son  !    Yes,  it  is  over.     Now 
'Tis  over.     Now  I  see  it  all  so  clearly, 

and  much  more  of  the  same  purport.  But  how 
strange  that  he  should  have  brooded  for  eight  moons 
over  his  passion  without  ever  having  considered  how 
it  might  appear  to  the  object  of  it !  His  talk  here 
suggests  a  mental  inadequacy  which  one  is  hardly 
prepared  to  see  change  all  of  a  sudden  into  heroic 
resolution. 

To  be  sure  it  was  a  part  of  Schiller's  design  to 
represent  in  Carlos  a  process  of  evolution.  Under 
the  influence  of  manly  friendship  the  puling  senti- 
mentalist was  to  have  his  fiber  toughened  into  the 
stuff  that  great  men  are  made  of;  and  so  it  was  quite 
in  order  that  he  should  appear  at  first  as  a  weak- 
ling. But  he  is  too  much  of  a  weakling,  and  the  rea- 
son is  that  Schiller  did  not  foresee  the  end  from  the 
beginning.  He  thought  of  Carlos  originally  as  a  hap- 
less youth  having  a  sort  of  natural  right  to  rebel.  It 
was  a  part  of  the  plan,  moreover,  that  he  should  re- 
nounce and  grow  strong  through  renunciation.  But 
this  was  to  come  later  in  the  third  act ;  in  the  begin- 
ning he  was  to  dally  with  the  morbid  passion  which 


Carlos  and  Posa  191 

was  to  be  his  tragic  guilt.  Now  with  this  conception 
of  the  subject,  the  portrait  of  Carlos,  just  as  we  have 
it,  fits  in  very  well ;  but  when  the  main  interest  of  the 
play  had  become  political,  when  the  lawless  love  had 
become  of  no  account  and  the  renunciation  everything, 
— then  it  was  surely  an  error  to  introduce  Carlos  in 
such  a  pitiful  plight  of  soul  that  faith  in  him  is  next  to 
impossible,  and  the  next  moment  require  us  to  accept 
him  as  a  hero. 

In  fine,  one  may  well  wish  that  Carlos  had  a  little 
more  of  the  soul  of  Hamlet, — leastwise  of  Hamlet's 
rough  energy  of  character  and  saving  sense  of  humor. 
But  the  time  is  past  for  thinking  to  dispose  of  Schiller 
by  saying  that  he  was  no  Shakspere.     Enough  that 
he  was  himself     And  nowhere  was  he  more  himself 
than  in  just  this  combination  of  infinite  soft-heartedness  ^ 
with  large  manly  ambition.     When  Carlos  preaches  to 
his   father   that    'tears   are   the  eternal   credential  ofv 
humanity',  he  utters  a  genuine   oracle  of  the  senti-  J 
mental  age.     And  when  in  the  final  scene  he  appears  ^ 
purified  by  suffering,  master  of  his  selfish  passion  and  all 
intent  upon  that  higher  good  of  which  he  has  caught  a 
glimpse,  he  speaks  again   from  the  heart  of  Schiller. 
What  a  noble  figure  is  Carlos  in  this  last  interview  with 
his  mother !    What    matchless    poetry    in    the    lines  ! 
And  how  genuinely,  thrillingly  tragic  is  the  ending  of 
the  scene  ! 

The  teacher  of  Prince  Carlos  is  the  arnazijo^^Mir-. 
quis  of  Posa.  In  a  cynical  foot-note  of  the  year  1845 
Carlyle  quotes,  with  seeming  approval,  Richter's  com- 
parison of  Posa  to  the  tower  of  a  light-house, — '<  high, 
far-shining,  empty  ".     But  what  would  Jeafn  Paul  have 


mm* 

) 


192  Don  Carlos 

had  ?     Is  it  not  quite  enough  for  a  light-house  to  be 
high  and  far-shining  ?     One  does  not  see  how  its  use- 
fulness would  be  enhanced  by  filling  it  with  the  beans 
and  bacon  of  practical  politics.     Here  surely  one  must 
side  with  Schiller  and  never  think  of  criticising  him 
for  not  making  his  Posa  an  exponent  of  political  ideas 
that  belong  to  a  later  time.     Every  age  has  its  dream. 
/Ours  is  of  a  people  to  be  made  happy  by  democratic 
I    legislation  ;    Schiller's  was   of  a  people  to  be   made 
I    happy  by  the  personal  goodness  and   enlightenment 
''   of  the  monarch.     That  the  one  dream,  seen  sub  specie 
aeternitatisy  is  any  more  empty  and  fatuous  than  the 
other,  would  be  very  difficult  to  prove. 

The  sentimental  imagination  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury was  fond  of  dwelling  upon  the  loneliness  of  the 
jrincely  station.  Standing  above  all  other  men,  occu- 
pied habitually  with  weighty  matters  of  state,  sur- 
rounded by  self-seeking  flatterers  and  schemers,  how 
was  a  ruler  ever  to  hear  the  truth  or  to  know  the  bless- 
edness of  disinterested  friendship  >  Awful  fate  to  be 
thus  cut  off  from  tender  human  affection  and  compelled 
to  tread  the  wine-press  alone  !  And  if  a  prince  should 
really  find  a  friend,  how  fortunate  for  him  and  his  sub- 

fjects  !     It  was  the  simple  theory  of  idealists  under  the 
Old  Regime  that  the  happiness  of  a  people  depended 
altogether  upon  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  the  kinff  ; 
and  in  an  age  when  *  feeling  was  everything '  it  was 
natural  that  goodness  of  the  heart  should  count  for 
more  than  mere  sagacity.   What  the  king  was  believed 
/  to  need  pre-eminently,  was  to  keep  alive  his  human 
I    sympathies  ;  and  how  could  he  do  this  better  than  by 
I .  having  some  one  to  love  and  confide  in } 


Character  of  Posa  193 

So  Schiller  provides  his  Spanish  prince  with  a 
friend.  Our  drama  seems  to  wish  to  impute  to  Posa  a 
lovable  personality ;  else  how  account  for  the  spell 
that  he  casts  over  all  three  of  the  royal  personages  ?^ 
Looked  at  closely,  however,  and  judged  by  his  con-*^ 
duct  rather  than  by  his  fine  phrases,  he  appears  any-  I 
thing  but  lovable.  After  his  death  it  comes  to  light  I 
that  he  is  deeply  involved  in  a  conspiracy  for  which  / 
the  ordinary  name  is  treason.  He  has  been  organizing 
a  combination  of  European  powers  for  the  purpose  of 
detaching  the  Netherlands  by  force  from  the  Spanish 
crown.  He  returns  to  Spain  as  an  arch-traitor, — 
with  his  pockets  full  of  letters  which  if  discovered 
would  cost  him  his  head.  When  one  learns  this  and 
then  thinks  back  in  the  light  of  this  knowledge,  his 
conduct  throughout  the  play  appears  absolutely  incon- 
ceivable ;  so  that  one  is  driven  to  the  conjecture  that 
Schiller  did  not  think  of  him  all  along  as  an  out-and- 
out  traitor,  but  added  this  touch  at  the  last,  along  with 
others,  for  the  purpose  of  accenting  his  character  as  a 
Quixotic  madman. 

Up  to  the  fourth  act  the  impression  produced  by 
fiim~is  that  of  an  amiable  idealist,  who  has  travelled 

*  Kuno  Fischer,  "  Schiller- Schriften,  "I,  217,  observes:  "Freilich 
bedarf  die  Schauspielkunst  um  diese  Scene  [the  great  scene  between 
Posa  and  Philip]  so  magisch  wirken  zu  lassen,  wie  das  Genie  des 
Dichters  sie  erzeugt  und  gestaltet  hat,  eines  Posa,  dem  die  Natur  die 
seltensten  Gaben  verliehen.  Jede  seiner  Bewegungen,  jede  Geberde, 
jeder  Ton,  ist  Anmut  und  Wohlklang.  Er  Uberzeugt  den  KOnig  nicht 
durch  den  Inhalt  seiner  Rede,  er  rOhrt  ihn  nicht  durch  seine  Ideen,  und 
doch  gewinnt  er  ihn  vOllig,  weil  er  ihn  persOnlich  bezaubert."  The 
natural  effect  of  Schiller's  words,  however,  is  to  give  an  impression 
that  the  king  is  moved  not  solely  by  Posa's  personal  charm,  but  in  part 
by  the  idealism  of  his  character. 


( 


IF 


194  Don  Girlos 

extensively  and  acquired  liberal  ideas  of  government. 
He  has  been  shocked  by  the  regime  of  persecution 
and  bloodshed  in  the  Netherlands.  He  cares  nothing 
for  Protestantism  as  a  creed,  but  he  is  an  apostle  of, 
tolerance  in  the  style  of  Frederick  the  Great.  He 
returns  to  Spain  intent  upon  securing  for  the  Nether- 
lands not  political  independence  through  revolution, 
but  freedom  of  thought  under  the  Spanish  crown  ;  and 
this  he  thinks  to  accomplish  by  procuring  the  stadhol- 
dership  for  Prince  Carlos.  Now  this  being  the  pre- 
supposition, it  was  a  great  thought  of  Schiller  to  bring 
his  humane  dreamer  face  to  face  with  the  somber 
despot,  Philip  the  Second.  Let  it  be  granted  that 
Posa's  views  of  statesmanship,  which  belong  to  the  Age_ 
of  Enlightenment,  could  hardly  have  found  lodgment 
in  the  brain  of  a  chevalier  of  the  i6th  century.  The 
thing  is  perhaps  supposable  only  in  poetry ;  but  there 
it  is  supposable  enough,  and  Schiller  need  not  have 
troubled  himself  to  argue  away  the  anachronism.  It 
is  the  poet's  prerogative  to  mask  himself  and  his  own 
age  in  the  forms  of  the  fictitious  past.  He  will  do  it 
anyway,  no  matter  how  hard  he  may  strive  after  his- 
torical verisimilitude.  It  is  just  as  well,  therefore,  for 
him  to  throw  away  his  scruples  and  stand  boldly  on 
his  rights. 

From  a  dramaturgic  point  of  view,  indeed,  the  long 
political  altercation  between  Posa  and  Philip  is  out  of 
place ;  it  is  magnificent,  but  it  holds  up  the  action  to 
no  purpose,  and  the  play  goes  on  as  if  it  had  not  been. 
Schiller  was  evidently  concerned  to  produce  a  pendant 
to  the  great  scene  in  'Nathan  the  Wise'.  Saladin 
wants  truth,  Philip  wants  a  man.     Both  the  prophets 


Posa  and  the  King  195 

prepare  themselves  for  their  ordeal  in  a  brief  soliloquy. 
Both  monarchs  get  their  wish,  andj^ friendly  relation_^ 
ensues.     Both  scenes  are  purple  patches   of  didacti- 
cism,— the  jiuthor  preaching  a  sermon  to  his  contem-^ 
poraries.     Unfortunately  Schiller  did  not  have  at  hand 
^matchless  fable  to  make  his  doctrine  concrete  and 
give    it   human  interest.      In    places  his  language  is 
abstract  and  difficult  to  follow,  but  taken  as  a  whole 
the   scene   is    admirable   in    its   denotation   of  Posa's 
^^GlLiB^i^^^*^^'^^  ^^^  humane  philosophy.     For  a 
moment  the  marquis  dreams  of  accomplishing  his  pur- 
pose by  an  appeal  to  the  goodness  and  enlightenment..^ 
of  the  king  ;    and   into   his  appeal  he  pours  all  the 
eloquence  of  eighteenth-century  humanitarianism.    All 
that  the  literature  of  generations  had  garnered  up  ;  all 
that  lay  on  the  heart  of  the  young  Schiller,  in  the  way 
of  fair  hopes  for  mankind  to  be  realized  by  humane  *\ 
and    enlightened   rulership,  finds   here   immortal  ex-y 
pression  through  the  mouth  of  Posa. 

And  then  what  a  revulsion  in  the  last  two  acts  ! 
The  great  scene  of  the  third  act  leaves  an  impression 
that  the  world's  affairs  are  not  in  such  bad  hands  after 
all.  Posa  does  not  convince  the  king's  mind,  but  he 
finds  his  heart  and  wins  his  confidence.  One  has  the 
feeling  that,  if  he  bide  his  time  and  use  some  tact,  he  can 
accomplish  all  that  he  desires.  But  to  our  amazement  _^ 
he  gives  up  the  king  and  enters  upon  a  desperate  game- 
of  double-dealing  in  which  he  deceives  everybody.  ,* 
He  forms  the  plan  of  sending  Carlos  to  the  Nether- 
lands as  the  leader  of  a  revolt.  Of  this  plan  he  says 
nothing  to  his  friend,  nor  does  he  tell  him  of  his  own 
new  relation  to  the  king.     Instead  he  wraps  himself 


196  Don  Carlos 

in  mystery  and  asks  Carlos  for  his  letter-case.  This 
he  turns  over  to  the  king,  and  gets  a  warrant  for  the 
arrest  of  Carlos.  The  young  prince,  suspecting  quite 
reasonably  that  he  has  been  betrayed,  goes  to  Eboli 
for  enlightenment.  Here  Posa  finds  him  and  draws 
his  dagger  upon  the  woman,  as  if  she  were  the  pos- 
sessor of  some  terrible  secret, — which  in  fact  she  is 
not.  Then  he  relents  and  arrests  Carlos  without  ex- 
planation. He  now  writes  a  compromising  letter  which 
he  knows  will  cause  his  own  death.  Then,  after  some 
delay,  he  goes  to  Carlos  and  tries  to  explain  his  strange 
conduct,  and  while  he  is  telling  his  story  the  bullet  of 
the  king's  assassin  finds  him.  Carlos  mourns  the 
Great  Departed  as  a  pattern  of  unexampled  heroic 
virtue,  but  one  can  have  little  sympathy  with  the 
panegyric,  especially  after  one  learns  that  Posa  was  a 
traitor  from  the  beginning. 

There  would  be  little  profit  in  discussing  the  last 
two  acts  of  '  Don  Carlos '  with  respect  to  their  inherent 
reasonableness.  It  is  possible  to  frame  an  intelligible 
theory  of  Posa's  conduct,  but  not  one  which  is  perfectly 
coherent,  and  least  of  all  one  which  shall  harmonize 
with  the  impression  produced  by  the  first  three  acts. 
There  we  have  j^n  amiable  idealist,  whom  we  can  at 
least  understand^ here  a  madman  smitten,  like  Fiesco, 
with  a  mania  for  managing  a  large  and  dangerous  in- 
trigue all  in  his  own  way,  and  accomplishing  his  ends 
"^y  modes  of  action  which  seem  to  him  heroic,  but  to 
the  ordinary  mind  utterly  preposterous.  Thus  he  ac- 
counts for  his  failure  to  confide  his  plans  to  Carlos  by 
saying  that  he  was  '  beguiled  by  false  delicacy', — which 
seems  to  mean  that  his  relation  to  the  king  was  felt  by 


I 


Character  of  Philip  197 

him  as  a  breach  of  friendship.  But  how  strange  that 
a  man  with  public  ends  in  view  should  feel  thus  under 
the  circumstances  !  So  too  his  self-sacrifice  is  nothing 
but  heroic  folly,  since  his  deaSTTnrio  "way  betters  the 
chances  of  Carlos  for  escape.  The  flight  would  have 
had  a  better  chance  of  success  had  Posa  omitted  his 
heroics  altogether  and  quietly  planned  to  escape  with 
his  friend.  In  fine,  we  have  to  do  here  with  entirely 
abnormal  psychic  processe^.^  The  reader  and  still 
more  the  spectator  is  bewildered  by  Posa,  and  does 
not  know  any  better  than  Carlos  and  the  king  know 
how  to  take  him.^ 

Turning  now  to  the  portrait  of  the  king  we  find 
there  too  the  traces  of  a  wavering  purpose.  The 
original  conception  was  dark  as  Erebus.  In  the  first 
act,  more  especially  in  the  first  act  as  originally  printed, 
the  King  of  Spain  is  painfully  suggestive  of  a  wicked 
ogre  swooping  in  upon  a  nursery  of  naughty  children. 
Such  an  insanely  jealous,  swaggering,  domineering, 
cruel  fanatic  is  too  loathsome  to  be  interesting.  Then 
came  the  thought,  suggested  partly  by  the  reading  of 
Brantome  and  Ferrera,  of  presenting  Philip's  character 
in  a  more  favorable  light  and  making  him  the  center 
of  tragic  interest, — a  thought  which  was  neither  given 
up  nor  consistently  carried  out.  In  October,  1785, 
Schiller  wrote  to  Korner  that  he  was  reading  Watson 
and  that  *  weighty  reforms  were  threatening  his  own 
Philip  and  Alva.'  The  Rev.  Robert  Watson's  history 
by  no  means  idealizes  Philip,  but  it  credits  him  with 

*  Perhaps  the  best  possible  account  of  his  death  is  that  of  Kuno 
Fischer,  <*  Schiller-Schriften  ",  I,  215  :  "Er  opfert  sich  fUr  ein  welt- 
geschichtliches  Ideal,  das  er  idyllisch  traumte." 


198  Don  Carlos 

sincerity,  vigilance,  penetration,  self-control,  adminis- 
trative capacity  and  a  *  considerable  share  of  sagacity ' 
in  the  choice  of  ministers  and  generals,  —  not  an 
altogether  mean  list  of  kingly  qualities.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  Mercier's  book  ^  Philip  appears  as  the  embodi- 
ment of  all  those  qualities  which  the  Age  of  Enlighten- 
ment regarded  as  odious  in  a  ruler.  Thus,  just  as  in 
the  case  of  Fiesco,  Schiller  found  himself  pulled  this 
way  and  that  by  his  authorities  ;  and  the  result  of  his 
attempt  to  graft  an  impressive  monarch  upon  the  stock 
furnished  by  St.  Real's  jealous  husband  is  a  Philip  who 
does  not  fully  satisfy  either  the  historic  sense  or  the 
\    poetic  imagination. 

For  Schiller,  of  course,  a  truly  great  monarch  needed 
to  have  a  tender  heart ;  so  Philip  was  given  certain 
sentimental  traits.  He  feels  the  loneliness  of  his  sta.- 
tion.  In  spite  of  his  seeming  coldness  the  pleading  of 
Carlos  for  affection  touches  him,  and  he  gives  orders 
that  henceforth  his  son  is  to  stand  nearer  to  the  throne. 

For  the  purpose  of  exhibiting  thejking's  magnanimitj,r 

we  have  the  anachronistic  scene  in  which  he  is  made 
to  pardon  Medina  Sidonia  for  the  loss  of  the  great 
armada, — an  event  which  happened  twenty  years 
later.  Then  he  becomes  suspicious  of  Domingo  and 
Alva  and  longs  for  an  honest  man  to  tell  him  the  truth. 
And  when  the  man  appears  the  king  is  most  surpris- 
ingly open-minded.     *  This  fire  ',  he  says  to  Posa, 

Is  admirable.     You  would  fain  do  good, 
Just  how  you  do  it,  patriot  and  sage 
Can  little  care. 

>  See  above,  page  169. 


General  Estimate  199 

So  Philip  is  a  patriot  and  a  sage,  glowing  with  the 
holy  fire  of  humanity ;  and  as  such  he  even  deigns  to 
explain  his  policy  and  to  enter  into  a  contest  of  mag- 
nanimity with  Posa.     But  the  large-hearted  monarch 
of  whom  we  get  a  glimpse  in  this  scene  is  soon  reduced^ 
back  to  the  jealous  husband  of  St.  Real,  and  his  jeal- 
ousy is  closely  patterned  upon  that  of  Othello.     The 
Philip  of  the  last  two  acts  is  sometimes  pitiable,  some- 
times repulsive,  never  great.     One  is  not  very  muchN 
surprised  when  he  hires  an  assassin  to  kill  Posa,  in-    1 
stead  of  handing  him  over  to  the  law.  — <^ 

Of  the  remaining  characters  the  queg^^is  the  most 
interesting.  In.  her  Schiller  for  the  first  time  depicts 
a  woman  convincingly.  His  Elizabeth  is  perhaps  a 
shade  too  ang:elic,r^she.is-an  ideal  figure  like  all  his 
women, — but  winsome  she  certainly  is.  One  is  a  little 
startled  by  the  readiness  with  which  she  approves  y 
Posa's  treasonable  plan  of  a  revolution  to  be  headed 
by  Don  Carlos,  but  in  this  play  the  sentiment  of  patriot- 
ism cuts  no  figure  anywhere.  The  principal  characters 
are  all  occupied  with  the  idea  of  J  hurrianity ',  and  are 
not  troubled  by  any  scruples  arising  out  of  national 
feeling. 

Taken  as  a  whole  *  Don  Carlos '  is  too  complicated 
to  yield  an  unalloyed  artistic  pleasure.  It  suffers  from 
a  lack  of  simplicity  and  concentration.  There  is 
material  in  it  for  two  or  three  plays.  The  double  in- 
trigue of  love  and  politics  becomes  toward  the  end 
very  confusing.  The  confusion  is  increased  by  the 
unexpected  turn  given  to  the  character  of  Posa,  and 

reaches  a  climax  when  we  learn  from  the  Grand  In-^^ 

quisitor  that  he  has  been  pulling  all  the  strings  from 


200  Don  Carlos 

first  to  last,  and  that  the  entire  tragedy  was  fore-^ 
ordained  in  the  secret  archives  of  the  Holy  Office., 
The  unity  of  interest  is  marred  by  the  fact  that  in  the 
last  two  acts  the  real  hero,  Don  Carlos,  drops  into  the 
background  as  the  helpless  tool  of  the  incalculable 
marquis.  And  Carlos,  too,  sometimes  acts  rather  un- 
accountably ;  for  example,  when  he  supposes  that  the 
wanton  billet-doux  signed  '  E.'  can  come  from  the 
queen,  of  whose  purity  and  high-mindedness  he  has 
just  had  convincing  evidence.  Then  again  his  conduct 
toward  the  Princess  Eboli  in  the  love  scene  is  very  sin- 
gular,— one  might  say  amazing.  And  there  are  some 
other  such  defects,  which  concern  the  stage  more  than 
the  reader  and  which,  by  skillful  acting  and  judicious 
excision,  can  be  reduced  to  insignificant  proportions. 
When  well  played  *  Don  Carlos '  produces  a  powerful 
impression.  For  the  reader  it  is  a  noble  poem  con- 
taining a  large  ingredient  of  Schiller's  best  self. 


CHAPTER  X 
SncboreO  in  Cburindia 

Ich  mHsz  ein  GeschSpf  um  mich  haben,  das  mir  geh. 

Lcttef  of  17SS. 

The  Weimar  of  Schiller's  first  acquaintance-^he 
arrived  there  July  21,  1787 — consisted  of  a  petty  prbr 
yincial  court  plus  an  unsightly  village.  The  inhab^ 
itants  numbered  about  six  thousand.  Of  t^fe  s|>ace 
built  over  about  one-third  was  occupied  by  the,  bujld^ 
•ings  of  the  court,  much  of  the  outlying  modern  Wei- 
mar being  then  under  water.  The  streets  were  narrow, 
muddy  lanes,  the  houses  plain  and  poor.  And  yet  the 
sluggish  little  place,  so  unprepossessing  in  all  material 
ways,  was  already  beginning  to  assert  that  claim  to 
glory  which  has  since  been  conceded  to  it  by  all  the 
world.  Princely  patronage  of  art  and  letters  was  by  no 
means  unknown  elsewhere  in  Germany,  but  it  was 
usually  a  matter  of  gracious  condescension  on  the  one 
side  and  grateful  adulation  on  the  other.  Very  differ- 
ent in  Weimar,  where  Goethe  was  not  only  a  me^^^^  — 
of  the  Council,  but  the  duke's  most  intimate  frier* 
trusted  adviser.  In  his  heart  Karl  August  cared .  lc«s 
for  aesthetic  matters  than  is  often  s 
mother,  the  Dowager  Duchess  Ama  .  .. 

for  the  real  4Qv.e  of  ifHJJtiS^r^ar©d)^^H-'  is  the 


CHARLOTTH  SCHILLEJi^ 


CHAPTER  X 
BncboreO  (n  tTburlngia 

Ich  musz  ein  Gesch5pf  um  mich  haben,  das  mir  gehort. 

Letter  of  1788. 

The  Weimar  of  Schiller's  first  acquaintance — he 
arrived  there  July  21,  1787 — consisted  of  a  petty  pro- 
vincial court  plus  an  unsightly  village.  The  inhab- 
itants numbered  about  six  thousand.  Of  the  space 
built  over  about  one-third  was  occupied  by  the  build- 
ings of  the  court,  much  of  the  outlying  modern  Wei- 
mar being  then  under  water.  The  streets  were  narrow, 
muddy  lanes,  the  houses  plain  and  poor.  And  yet  the 
sluggish  little  place,  so  unprepossessing  in  all  material 
ways,  was  already  beginning  to  assert  that  claim  to 
glory  which  has  since  been  conceded  to  it  by  all  the 
world.  Princely  patronage  of  art  and  letters  was  by  no 
means  unknown  elsewhere  in  Germany,  but  it  was 
usually  a  matter  of  gracious  condescension  on  the  one 
side  and  grateful  adulation  on  the  other.  Very  differ- 
ent in  Weimar,  where  Goethe  was  not  only  a  member 
of  the  Council,  but  the  duke's  most  intimate  friend  and 
trusted  adviser.  In  his  heart  Karl  August  cared  less 
for  aesthetic  matters  than  is  often  supposed,  but  his 
mother,  the  Dowager  Duchess  Amalie,  patronized  art 
for  the  real  love  of  it.     Poetry  and  music  were  as  the 

201 


202  Anchored  in  Thuringia 

breath  of  life  to  her,  and  her  taste  in  poetry  had  been 
trained  by  the  greatest  living  master.  Aside  from 
Goethe,  two  other  distinguished  writers  had  found  a 
home  in  Weimar.  The  kindly  but  changeable  Wieland, 
not  really  one  of  the  dii  majoreSy  but  so  regarded  at  the 
time,  had  lived  there  since  1772  ;  Herder,  much  more 
nobly  endowed,  but  less  amiable  and  less  popular, 
since  1776. 

At  the  time  of  Schiller's  advent  Goethe  was  still  in 
Italy,  whither  he  had  gone  the  previous  autumn  to  find 
relief  from  the  miseries  of  duodecimo  statesmanship. 
Karl  August  and  the  reigning  Duchess  Luise  were  also 
absent,  but  several  minor  notables  of  the  court  circle 
had  remained  '  in  town ',  and  the  dowager  duchess  was 
giving  aesthetic  teas  as  usual  in  her  easily  accessible 
*  castle  '  at  Tiefurt.  Wieland  and  Herder  were  like- 
wise at  home.  On  his  arrival  Schiller  was  taken  charge 
of  by  the  Baroness  von  Kalb,  who  was  awaiting  her 
soul's  affinity  with  feverish  eagerness.  Her  excitement 
at  seeing  him  again  amounted  to  a  *  paroxysm '  which 
made  her  ill  for  a  week.  Then  she  grew  better  and 
her  emotions  gradually  found  the  level  of  a  friendliness 
too  passionate  to  be  called  Platonic,  but  not  sinAil  in 
the  lower  sense.  As  for  Schiller,  he  devotedly  let 
himself  be  loved  and  introduced  to  Weimar  society, 
the  pair  making  no  concealment  of  their  liking  for  each 
other.  At  first  he  felt  some  compunctions  on  account 
of  the  absent  husband,  who  might  be  annoyed  by  gos- 
sip. It  pleased  him  to  observe,  therefore,  that  in 
Weimar  such  a  friendship  was  taken  as  a  matter  of 
course  and  treated   with   delicacy.  ^      *  Charlotte,*  he 

»  Letter  of  July  28,  1787,  to  KOmer. 


Introduction  to  Weimar  203 

wrote  to  Korner,  *is  a  grand,  exceptional,  womanly 
soul,  a  real  study  for  me  and  worthy  to  occupy  a 
greater  mind  than  mine.  With  each  forward  step  in 
our  intercourse  I  discover  in  her  new  manifestations 
that  surprise  and  delight  me  like  beautiful  spots  in  a 
broad  landscape.' 

For  several  months  he  played  this  unwholesome 
role  of  cicisbeo  to  Charlotte  von  Kalb.  Then  another 
and  very  different  Charlotte  crossed  his  path  and 
quickly  taught  him  the  better  way. 

The  story  of  Schiller's  gradual  adjustment  to  the 
Weimar  milieu  is  told  very  fully  in  his  frequent  letters 
to  Korner.  He  called  upon  Herder  and  Wieland,  and 
was  received  with  '  amazing  politeness '  by  the  one, 
with  loquacious  cordiality  by  the  other.  Herder 
knew  nothing  of  his  writings  and  regaled  him  with 
idolatrous  talk  about  Goethe.  Wieland  knew  all  about 
him  except  that  he  had  not  yet  seen  *  Don  Carlos ' ; 
criticised  his  early  plays  frankly  as  lacking  in  correct- 
ness and  artistic  finish,  but  expressed  the  utmost  confi- 
dence in  him  nevertheless.  He  was  received  at  Tiefurt, 
but  did  not  like  the  dowager  duchess :  her  mind,  he 
reported,  was  very  narrow  ;  nothing  interested  her  but 
the  sensuous.  A  few  days  later  he  heard  that  '  Don 
Carlos '  had  been  read  to  a  select  assembly  at  Tiefurt 
and  had  not  made  a  good  impression ;  there  had  been 
caustic  criticism  of  the  piece,  particularly  the  last  two 
acts,  and  Wieland,  who  was  present,  had  not  stood  up 
for  it.  This  led  to  a  coolness  toward  Wieland.  By 
the  end  of  three  weeks  Schiller  had  despaired  of 
Weimar  and  was  miserable.  He  thought  of  leaving 
the  place  in  disgust. 


204  Anchored  in  Thuringia 

In  August  he  spent  a  week  at  Jena  as  the  guest 
of  Professor  Reinhold,  who  was  about  to  begin  lectur- 
ing upon  Kant  and  was  predicting  that  after  a  cen- 
tury the  Konigsberg  philosopher  would  have  a  repu- 
tation like  that  of  Jesus  Christ.  Reinhold's  enthusiasm 
led  Schiller  to  read  some  of  Kant's  shorter  essays, 
among  which  a  paper  upon  universal  history  gave 
him  '  extraordinary  satisfaction '.  From  Reinhold 
came  also  the  assurance  that  it  would  be  easy  to 
secure  a  Jena  professorship.  The  idea  did  not  at  once 
take  hold  of  him  in  the  sense  of  becoming  a  definite 
purpose,  but  it  tallied  with  his  inclination.  His  ex- 
perience with  *  Don  Carlos '  had  left  him  in  doubt 
whether  the  drama  was  after  all  his  true  vocation,  and 
he  had  already  begun  to  work  fitfully  upon  a  history 
of  the  Dutch  Rebellion. 

So  he  decided  to  remain  a  little  longer  in  Weimar 
and  devote  himself  to  historical  writing  ;  and,  this  reso- 
lution formed,  life  at  once  began  to  open  more  pleas- 
antly before  him.  He  saw  that  he  had  made  the 
mistake  of  taking  the  Weimar  magnates  too  seriously  ; 
of  imagining  that  they  were  all  sitting  in  judgment 
upon  him,  and  that  it  was  of  the  greatest  importance  to 
win  their  favor.  *  I  begin  to  find  life  here  quite  toler- 
able ',  he  wrote  early  in  September,  *  and  the  secret  of 
it — you  will  wonder  that  it  did  not  occur  to  me  be- 
fore— is  not  to  bother  my  head  about  anybody.'  And 
indeed  he  had  no  reason  to  be  disgruntled.  Herder 
was  pleased  with  *  Don  Carlos '  and  came  out  in  its 
favor  before  the  aesthetic  tribunal  of  Tiefurt.  Wieland 
noticed  it  favorably  in  the  Merkur,  spoke  flatteringly 
of  it  in  conversation  and  declared  himself  now  con- 


New  Literary  Pursuits  205 

vinced  that  Schiller's  forte  was  the  drama.  Hence- 
forth the  two  men  were  fast  friends  and  presently 
Schiller  was  toying  with  the  thought  of  marrying 
Wieland's  favorite  daughter.  ^  I  do  not  know  the  girl 
at  all ',  he  wrote,  '  but  I  would  ask  for  her  to-day  if  I 
thought  I  deserved  her.'  ^  His  scruple  was  that  he 
was  too  much  of  a  cosmopolitan  to  be  permanently 
contented  with  '  these  people '.  A  simple-minded, 
innocent  girl  of  domestic  proclivities  would  not  be 
happy  with  him. 

The  autumn  passed  in  quiet  work  devoted  mainly  to 
his  *  Defection  of  the  Netherlands '.  The  Duke  of 
Weimar  came  home  for  a  few  days  towards  the  ist  of 
October,  but  immediately  went  away  again  to  Holland. 
Schiller  did  not  even  see  him.  Evidently  there  was 
nothing  to  be  hoped  for  immediately  in  that  quarter ; 
he  would  have  to  rely  upon  himself  But  he  was  now 
in  demand.  The  Merkur  was  eager  for  contributions 
from  his  pen,  and  so  was  the  Litter atur-Zeitung,  whose 
extensive  review  factory  had  been  shown  him  during 
his  sojourn  in  Jena.  Then  there  was  the  comatose 
Thalia^  which  he  determined  to  revive  after  New 
Year's. 

In  November  he  spent  a  few  days  at  Meiningen, 
where  his  sister  Christophine  was  now  living  as  the 
wife  of  Reinwald.  He  saw  Frau  von  Wolzogen  and 
Lotte  (who  was  about  to  be  married),  but  Bauerbach 
had  lost  its  charm.  '  The  old  magic,'  he  wrote  to 
Korner,  '  had  been  blown  away.  I  felt  nothing. 
None  of  all  the  places  that  formerly  made  my  solitude 
interesting  had  anything  to  say  to  me.'    On  his  return 

1  Letter  of  Nov.  19,  1787. 


2o6  Anchored  in  Thurmgia 

fate  was  lurking  for  him  at  Rudolstadt,  where  his 
friend,  Wilhelm  von  Wolzogen,  introduced  him  to 
Frau  von  Lengefeld  and  her  two  daughters.  *  Both 
creatures ',  Schiller  wrote,  *  are  attractive,  without  being 
beautiful  and  please  me  much.  You  find  here  con- 
siderable acquaintance  with  recent  literature,  also  re- 
finement, feeling  and  intelligence.  They  play  the 
piano  well,  which  gave  me  a  delightful  evening.'  The 
elder  daughter,  Karoline,  was  married  unhappily  to  a 
Herr  von  Beulwitz,  from  whom  she  afterwards  sepa- 
rated to  marry  Wilhelm  von  Wolzogen.  She  was  a 
woman  of  much  literary  talent,  which  found  employ- 
ment later  in  a  novel,  *  Agnes  von  Lilien ',  and  in  her 
excellent  memoir  of  Schiller.  The  other  daughter 
was  unmarried  and  bore  the  auspicious  name  of 
Charlotte. 

Lotte  von  Lengefeld,  whose  memory  is  cherished 
with  idealizing  tenderness  by  the  Germans,  was  now 
twenty-one  years  old, — a  demure  maiden  whose  eyes 
spake  more  than  her  tongue.  She  had  long  since  won 
the  heart  of  the  Baroness  von  Stein,  who  had  intro- 
duced her  at  the  Weimar  court  and  held  out  to  her  the 
hope  of  becoming  a  lady-in-waiting  to  the  Duchess 
Luise.  Goethe  was  fond  of  her  and  did  not  omit  to 
send  her  affectionate  greetings  from  distant  Italy. 
Some  time  before,  she  had  spent  a  year  with  her 
mother  and  sister  in  Switzerland  for  the  purpose  of 
improving  her  French  ;  and  on  the  way  home,  in  the 
summer  of  1784,  the  party  had  caught  a  glimpse  of 
Schiller  in  Mannheim.  Now  the  sisters  were  living  in 
a  sort  of  idyllic  solitude  at  Rudolstadt,  cut  off  from  the 
great  world,  absorbed  in  their  books,  their  music,  and 


Qiarlotte  von  LengefeldJ  207 

the  memories  of  that  happy  year  in  Switzerland. 
Karoline  von  Wolzogen  writes,  in  speaking  of  this 
occasion  : 

My  sister  was  seemingly  in  every  respect  a  desirable  match 
for  Schiller.  She  had  a  very  winsome  form  and  face.  An  ex- 
pression of  purest  goodness  of  heart  enlivened  her  features,  and 
her  eyes  flashed  only  truth  and  innocence.  Thoughtful  and 
susceptible  to  the  good  and  the  beautiful  in  life  and  in  art,  her 
whole  nature  was  a  beautiful  harmony.  Of  even  temper,  but 
faithful  and  tenacious  in  her  affections,  she  seemed  created  to 
enjoy  the  purest  happiness. 

Making  all  needful  allowance  for  the  partiality  of  a 
sister,  one  cannot  wonder  that  the  visitor  went  on  his 
way  with  the  feeling  that  Rudolstadt  might  be  a  good 
place  in  which  to  spend  the  summer. 

The  condition  of  his  mind  was  certainly  such  as  to 
facilitate  the  designs  of  Providence.  In  January,  1788, 
he  wrote  to  Korner  as  follows  : 

I  am  leading  a  miserable  life,  miserable  through  the  condi- 
tion of  my  inner  being.  I  must  have  a  creature  about  me  who 
belongs  to  me ;  whom  I  can  and  must  make  happy ;  in  whose 
existence  my  own  can  grow  fresh  again.  You  do  not  know 
how  desolate  my  soul  is,  how  dark  my  mind  ;  and  all  not  be- 
cause of  my  external  fortune, — for  I  am  really  very  well  off  so  far 
as  that  is  concerned, — but  because  of  the  inward  wearing  out  of 
my  feelings.  ...  I  need  a  medium  through  which  I  can  enjoy 
the  other  blessings.  Friendship,  taste,  truth  and  beauty  will 
produce  a  greater  effect  upon  me  when  a  continual  succession 
of  sweet,  beneficent,  domestic  feelings  attune  me  to  joy  and 
warm  up  my  torpid  being. 

In  mid-winter  Lotte  von  Lengefeld  came  to  Wei- 
mar for  the  social  season  and  Schiller  saw  her  occa- 
sionally   with    steadily    increasing    interest.      Their 


2o8  Anchored  in  Thuringia 

famous  correspondence,  beginning  in  February,  1788, 
is  at  first  very  reserved,  very  formal  and  decorous,  but 
soon  begins  to  bewray  the  beating  of  the  heart.  '  You 
will  go,  dearest  Fraulein ',  writes  Schiller  on  the  5th  of 
April,  as  Lotte  was  about  to  return  to  Rudolstadt, 
*  and  I  feel  that  you  take  away  with  you  the  best  part 
of  my  present  joys. '  A  month  later  she  had  found 
him  lodgings  in  the  neighboring  village  of  Volkstedt, 
and  then  came  a  delightful  summer  idyl,  which  pro- 
longed itself  until  the  middle  of  November, — an  idyl 
not  of  love-making,  for  Schiller  could  not  yet  pluck  up 
the  courage  for  that,  but  of  spiritual  comradeship.  To 
quote  Karoline  again  : 

A  new  life  began  for  Schiller  in  our  house.  He  had  long 
been  denied  the  delight  of  a  free,  friendly  intercourse,  and  he 
always  found  us  susceptible  to  the  thoughts  that  filled  his  soul. 
He  wished  to  influence  us,  to  teach  us  what  might  serve  our 
turn  of  poetry,  art,  and  philosophy,  and  this  effort  gave  to  him- 
self a  gentle  harmonious  disposition.  .  .  .  When  we  saw  him 
coming  to  our  house  in  the  shimmer  of  the  sunset,  a  bright 
ideal  life  disclosed  itself  to  our  inner  sense.  Lofty  seriousness 
and  the  light  gracious  winsomeness  of  a  pure  and  open  soul 
were  always  present  in  Schiller's  conversation ;  in  listening  to 
him  one  walked  as  among  the  changeless  stars  of  heaven  and 
the  flowers  of  the  earth.  .  .  .  Schiller  became  calmer,  clearer  ; 
his  appearance  and  his  character  more  winsome,  his  mind  more 
averse  to  those  fantastic  views  of  life  which  he  had  hitherto  not 
been  able  to  banish.  A  new  hope  and  joy  dawned  in  the  heart 
of  my  sister,  and  I  returned,  in  the  happiness  of  a  new  inspiring 
friendship,  to  a  true  enjoyment  of  life.  Our  whole  social  circle 
shared  in  the  pleasure  of  this  kindly  magic. 

The  discourse  of  these  amiable  truth-seekers  turned 
partly  at  least  upon  the  Greeks.  Up  to  this  time 
Schiller  had  remained  virtually  ignorant  of  the  Greek 


Awakening  Interest  in  the  Greeks       209 

poets,  thus  missing  the  best  of  all  sanative  influences. 
He  had  absorbed  indirectly  something  of  the  Hellen- 
ism that  had  been  diffused  through  the  air  by  Winckel- 
mann,  Lessing,  Herder  and  Goethe,  but  his  knowledge 
of  the  Greek  language  was  very  rudimentary,  and  good 
translations  had  not  been  easily  procurable.  Thus  the 
glory  that  was  Greece  now  came  to  him  with  the 
charm  of  a  new  discovery.  The  poem,  *  The  Gods  of 
Greece',  contributed  to  the  Merkur  in  March,  1788, 
marks  the  beginning  of  his  Hellenizing.  A  little  later 
Homer  fascinated  him.  A  letter  written  in  August 
runs  thus : 

I  now  read  almost  nothing  but  Homer.  I  have  got  Voss'  trans- 
lation of  the  Odyssey,  which  is  in  truth  excellent,  aside  from  the 
hexameters,  which  I  cannot  endure.  .  .  .  For  the  next  two  years 
I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  read  no  more  modern  authors.  .  .  . 
Not  one  of  them  benefits  me.  They  all  lead  me  away  from 
myself,  and  the  ancients  now  give  me  true  enjoyment.  At  the 
same  time  I  need  them  most  urgently  to  purify  my  own  taste, 
which  through  subtlety,  artificiality  and  smartness  was  begin- 
ning to  depart  from  true  simplicity.  You  will  find  that  familiar 
intercourse  with  the  ancients  will  benefit  me  exceedingly,  per- 
haps give  me  classicity.  I  shall  first  study  them  in  good  trans- 
lations and  then,  when  I  almost  know  them  by  heart,  read  the 
Greek  originals.  In  this  way  I  expect  to  play  at  the  study  of  the 
Greek  language. 

On  the  7th  of  September,  1788,  an  event  occurred  : 
Goethe,  who  had  now  returned  from  Italy,  came  to 
visit  the  Lengefelds,  and  Schiller  was  introduced  to 
him.  For  a  year  he  had  heard  Goethe  idolized  on 
every  hand  and  felt  his  spirit  brooding  over  the 
Weimar  atmosphere.  What  he  heard  did  not  please 
him.     The  local  Goethe-cult,  so  he  wrote  to  Korner, 


210  Anchored  in  Thuringia 

was  characterized  by  a  proud,  philosophic  contempt  of 
all  speculation  and  investigation.  This  'child-like 
simplicity  of  mind  ',  this  *  resigned  surrender  to  the  five 
senses  ',  seemed  to  him  a  sort  of  affectation.  Besides 
this  he  was  irritated  by  Goethe's  prosperity  and  lordly 
independence.  At  the  same  time  he  could  not  help 
admiring  him  as  a  poet.  The  new  *  Iphigenie  '  gave 
him  a  '  happy  day  ',  though  his  pleasure  was  somewhat 
marred  by  the  depressing  thought  that  he  himself 
would  never  be  able  to  produce  anything  like  it.  And 
so  he  waited  with  eager  expectation  to  see  what  a 
personal  acquaintance  would  bring  forth.  It  brought 
forth  pleasure  mixed  with  dubiety.  After  that  first  in- 
terview with  the  great  man  he  wrote  to  Korner  thus  : 

On  the  whole,  my  idea  of  him,  which  was  in  truth  very  great, 
has  not  suffered  from  this  personal  acquaintance  ;  but  I  doubt 
whether  we  shall  ever  come  very  close  to  each  other.  Much 
that  is  still  interesting  to  me  has  had  its  day  with  him.  He  is  so 
far  in  advance  of  me, — not  so  much  in  years  but  in  self-develop- 
ment and  experience  of  life, — that  we  shall  never  come  together. 
And  then  his  whole  being  is  differently  organized  from  mine. 
His  world  is  not  mine  ;  our  ways  of  looking  at  things  seem 
essentially  different.  Nevertheless  one  cannot  draw  a  sure  con- 
clusion from  such  a  meeting.     Time  will  tell. 

Upon  Goethe  the  meeting  made  no  impression  at 
all.  For  him  Schiller  was  the  author  of  *  The  Robbers ', 
a  work  whose  popularity  annoyed  him.  He  did  not 
know,  and  he  took  no  pains  to  find  out,  that  Schiller 
was  no  longer  in  sympathy  with  the  ideas  that  had 
found  expression  in  the  detested  play.  So  he  held 
himself  aloof  and  six  years  passed  ere  the  two  men 
came  together  in  a  friendly  intimacy.  At  the  same 
time  there  was  nothing  like  ill-will  on  Goethe's  part. 


Appointed  Professor  at  Jena  211 

He  recognized  Schiller's  talent,  praised  *  The  Gods  of 
Greece  '  and  was  half  pleased  with  the  review  of  *  Eg- 
mont ',  which  might  well  have  nettled  a  less  Olympian 
temper.  In  the  fall  of  1788  'The  Defection  of  the 
Netherlands '  was  published  and  favorably  received. 
About  the  same  time  a  vacancy  occurred  in  the  Jena 
faculty,  and  Schiller's  friends  proposed  him  for  the 
position.  Goethe  took  the  matter  up  with  the  various 
governments  concerned  and  met  with  no  opposition. 
And  so  it  came  about,  one  day  in  December,  that  Schil- 
ler, who  had  meanwhile  taken  to  translating  Euripides 
and  was  planning  a  whole  Greek  theater  in  German, 
was  interrupted  by  an  official  notice  that  he  had 
been  appointed  professor  of  history  at  Jena  and  would 
be  expected  to  enter  upon  his  duties  in  the  spring. 
It  was  only  an  *  extraordinary '  professorship  without 
salary,  but  its  possibilities  as  a  stepping-stone  were 
alluring.     He  decided  to  accept. 

Now  came  a  short  season  of  helpless  and  comical 
dismay.  '  I  would  take  a  thrashing ',  he  wrote  to 
Korner,  *  if  I  could  have  you  here  for  four-and-twenty 
hours.  Goethe  quotes  his  docendo  discituvy  but  these 
gentlemen  do  not  seem  to  know  how  small  my  learn- 
ing is.'  To  Lotte  he  declared  that  he  should  feel 
ridiculous  in  the  new  situation.  *  Many  a  student  will 
perhaps  know  more  history  than  the  professor.  Never- 
theless I  think  like  Sancho  Panza  with  respect  to  his 
governorship  :  To  whom  God  gives  an  office,  to  him 
he  gives  understanding  ;  and  when  I  have  my  island  I 
shall  rule  it  like  a  nabob.'  It  was  not  pleasant  to 
drop  his  fascinating  studies  of  the  Greek  poets  and 
bury  himself  in   learned  sawdust,  but  the  thing  was 


212  Anchored  in  Thuringia 

not  to  be  helped.  So  the  winter  and  spring  were  de- 
voted mainly  to  historical  reading.  At  the  same  time, 
however,  *  The  Ghostseer '  was  carried  along  in  the 
now  resuscitated  Thalia,  and  the  long  poem,  *  The 
Artists',  was  slowly  and  with  infinite  revision  got 
ready  for  publication  in  the  Merkur. 

During  this  period  he  saw  little  or  nothing  of  Goethe 
and  steadily  nursed  a  splenetic  determination  not  to 
like  the  man.  Passages  in  his  letters  are  almost  comi- 
cal in  their  perversity  of  misjudgment.  He  was  exas- 
perated by  Goethe's  reticence,  composure  and  self- 
sufidciency, — qualities  which  seemed  to  him  to  spring 
out  of  calculating  egotism.  Goethe,  so  the  arraign- 
ment ran,  was  a  man  who  went  on  his  way  serenely 
dispensing  favors,  winning  love  and  admiration  and 
putting  people  under  obligation,  but  always  like  a  god, 
— without  ever  giving  his  intimate  self  or  surrendering 
his  own  freedom.  For  his  part,  he,  Schiller,  did  not 
wish  to  live  near  such  a  man,  much  as  he  admired  his 
intellect  and  valued  his  judgment.  This  attitude  of 
his  was  a  great  trial  to  the  Lengefeld  sisters,  who  did 
not  fail  to  expostulate  with  him.  But  it  was  of  no  use. 
*  I  have  not  time  ',  he  declared,  *  in  this  short  and  busy 
life,  to  attempt  a  decipherment  of  Goethe's  enigmatic 
character.  If  he  is  really  such  a  very  lovable  being,  I 
shall  find  it  out  in  the  next  world,  when  we  shall  all 
be  angels.'  In  fine  he  was  not  yet  ripe  for  an  under- 
standing of  the  Weimar  sovereign.  He  did  not  see 
that  Goethe's  method  was  after  all  a  giving  of  himself, 
and  that  the  self  thus  given  was  not  the  worse  but  the 
better  for  having  outgrown  the  effusive  raptures  of 
sentimentalism. 


Love  and  Betrothal  213 

In  May  the  lectures  at  Jena  began  with  great  eclat. 
On  the  first  day  students  to  the  number  of  five  or  six 
hundred  flocked  to  hear  the  author  of  '  The  Robbers  ' 
expound  the  difference  between  the  philosophic  scholar 
and  the  bread-and-butter  professor.  It  was  an  inspir- 
ing discourse,  full  of  high  idealism  and  well  fitted  to 
inspire  the  souls  of  ingenuous  youth,  even  though  they 
might  not  quite  understand  it.  The  students  were  en- 
thusiastic and  gave  the  new  professor  the  unusual 
compliment  of  a  serenade.  Having  decided  to  begin 
with  a  course  of  free  public  lectures  upon  universal  his- 
tory, he  took  his  duties  very  seriously,  and  even  after 
curiosity  had  abated  he  continued,  during  the  first  term, 
to  address  a  large  audience.  He  had  hoped  only  for 
prestige,  and  the  game  was  quickly  won.  He  was  the 
most  popular  professor  in  Jena.  All  this  time,  how- 
ever, his  heart  was  in  Rudolstadt, — with  the  two  sisters 
to  whom,  for  a  year  and  a  half,  he  had  been  writing 
letters  of  impartial  Platonic  devotion.  Late  in  July  he 
received  a  hint  from  Karoline  to  the  effect  that  her 
sister  was  very  much  in  love  with  him  and  that  an 
understanding  might  be  desirable.  Then  at  last  the 
timorous,  cunctatory  worshiper  of  femininity  in  the 
abstract  declared  himself  and  prayed  to  know  if  the 
good  news  could  be  true.  Lotte  assured  him  that  it 
was ;  if  she  could  make  him  happy  she  was  willing 
to  devote  herself  to  the  enterprise  during  the  remain- 
der of  her  days. 

Now  the  millennium  began.  Our  celestial  dreamer, 
who  had  thus  been  gently  pushed  over  the  threshold 
by  a  friendly  hand,  found  himself  in  a  human  paradise 
much   more   grateful  to  the   soul   than   the  court  of 


214  Anchored  in  Thuringia 

Venus  Urania.  He  was  very,  very  happy.  The 
black  phantoms  that  had  beset  his  pathway  hitherto, — 
the  depressing  sense  of  loneliness,  of  having  missed 
the  great  prize,  of  being  de  trop  at  the  banquet  of  life, 
the  occasional  promptings  of  pessimism  and  misan- 
thropy, the  baleful  pull  of  illicit  passion,  the  selfish 
hugging  of  an  illusory  freedom, — all  these  took  their 
flight  to  return  no  more.  He  had  found  what  he 
needed — salvation  from  self  through  a  woman's  love. 
But  he  did  not  behave  like  other  sons  of  Adam.  He 
continued  to  address  his  love-letters  to  both  sisters 
impartially,  as  if  the  possession  of  Lotte  were  after  all 
to  be  only  a  subordinate  incident  in  the  preservation 
of  a  triangular  spiritual  friendship.  Sometimes  it  is 
*  my  dearest,  dearest  Karoline ',  again  *  my  dearest, 
dearest  Lotte',  most  frequently  *my  dearest  dears'. 
At  first  the  trio  agreed  to  keep  their  momentous 
secret  from  chere  mere.  Schiller  was  poor  and  his 
prospects  all  uncertain.  When  he  began,  in  the  fall 
of  1789,  to  give  lectures  that  were  to  be  paid  for,  he 
found  that  his  income  from  students'  fees  would  be  in- 
significant. Lotte  had  but  a  slender  portion,  and  then 
there  was  that  dreadful  von  in  her  name.  To  meet  this 
difficulty  Schiller  procured  the  title  of 'Hofrat'  from 
the  Duke  of  Meiningen.  Then  he  laid  the  case  before 
Karl  August  of  Weimar,  who  was  very  sympathetic 
but  also  very  poor.  The  best  he  could  do  was  to 
promise  shamefacedly  a  pittance  of  two  hundred  tha- 
lers  by  way  of  professorial  salary.  This,  with  love, 
was  enough.  In  one  of  the  noblest  letters  he  ever 
wrote  Schiller  now  addressed  himself  to  chere  mere, 
who  made  no  objections;  and  on  the  22nd  of  February, 


The  Gods  of  Greece  215 

1790,  the  impecunious  Hofrat  Professor  Schiller  and 
his  courageous,  aristocratic  sweetheart  were  married. 

The  work  of  Schiller  in  the  historical  field  will  be 
considered  by  itself  in  the  next  chapter.  Before  pass- 
ing on  to  that  subject,  however,  let  us  glance  at  the 
more  important  of  the  minor  writings  produced  during 
the  period  just  traversed. 

In  *  The  Gods  of  Greece  '  he  strikes  with  almost 
clangorous  emphasis  the  note  of  pagan  aestheticism. 
The  poem  sees  the  world  under  the  aspect  of  the 
Beautiful  and  regards  that  as  its  most  important  aspect. 
The  Greek  religion,  we  hear,  peopled  earth  and  sky 
and  sea  with  lovely  forms  that  gave  warmth  and  color 
to  life  and  fed  the  imagination  with  sensuous  poetry. 
Nature  appeared  living,  spiritual.  Rock  and  stream 
and  tree  had  each  its  tale  to  tell,  its  tale  of  passionate 
personal  history.  The  gods  were  near,  intelligible, 
sympathetic  ;  and  divine  gifts  were  more  precious  for 
being  shared  by  the  giver.  And  as  the  gods  were 
more  human,  so  man  was  more  divine.  In  comparison 
our  modern  monotheism  is  cold,  abstract,  mechanical. 
Instead  of  a  radiant  Apollo,  we  have  the  law  of  gravi- 
tation. We  have  lost  the  many  fair  gods  of  old  to  en- 
rich One  who  is  remote,  unfathomable,  self-sufficient. 

Where  art  thou,  beauteous  world  of  story  ? 

Fair  morning  of  a  vanished  day  ! 

Alas  !  the  magic  of  thine  ancient  glory 

Lives  only  in  the  poet's  lay.» 

^In  the  original,  lines  145-8,  of  the  earlier  version  : 

Sch(5ne  Welt,  wo  bist  du  ? — Kehre  wieder, 
Holdes  BlUtenalter  der  Natur  ! 
Ach !  nur  in  dem  Feenland  der  Lieder 
Lebt  noch  deine  goldne  Spur. 


■•^^^ 


2i6  Anchored  in  Thuringia 


It  was  inevitable  that  such  a  frank  eulogy  of  the  old 
gods  at  the  expense  of  the  Christian  Demiurgus  should 
give  offense.  Count  Leopold  von  Stolberg  put  himself 
at  the  head  of  a  vociferous  opposition  by  denouncing 
the  poem  in  a  Leipzig  journal  as  blasphemous,  and 
lamenting  that  the  author  of  the  noble  *  Song  to  Joy  * 
should  have  fallen  so  low.  The  modern  reader  finds  it 
easy  to  acquit  him  on  the  religious  arraignment,  since 
he  did  not  profess  to  present  the  claims  of  monotheism 
completely.  We  are  quite  willing  to  judge  of  poetry  as 
poetry  and  to  leave  it  its  ancient  privilege  of  passion- 
ate overstatement.  Of  this  privilege  Schiller  availed 
himself  in  the  fullest  measure,  going  quite  beyond  the 
bounds  of  sanity  in  his  idealization  of  the  Greeks. 
Well  might  the  indignant  Stolberg  ask  him  if  he  really 
believed  that  the  *  eternal  bonds  of  the  heart  were 
gentler  and  holier  when  Hymen  tied  them  '.  Whatever 
else  may  be  said  of  them,  the  amours  of  the  Greeks 
(gods  and  men)  were  not  remarkably  strong  on  the 
side  of  gentleness,  holiness  and  fidelity. 

In  respect  of  poetic  merit  Schiller  certainly  had  the 
right  to  his  opinion  that  '  The  Gods  of  Greece '  sur- 
passed his  earlier  efforts.  To  please  Wieland  he 
aimed  at  Horatian  correctness,  and  he  came  near  hit- 
ting the  mark.  There  is  no  progress  toward  lightness 
of  touch  or  melody  of  phrasing, — Schiller  was  not  the 
man  for  tuneful  titillation  of  the  ear, — but  the  poem  is 
tolerably  free  from  the  bizarre  hyperboles  that  mar  its 
predecessors.  It  is  intellectual,  argumentative,  but 
suffused  at  the  same  time  with  genuine  feeling,  and  the 
stanzas  have  a  stately  impressive  swing.  Goethe  was 
pleased  with  the  poem,  but  thought  it  too  long, — a 


The  Artists  217 

well-founded  criticism,  since  many  of  the  stanzas  merely 
brought  fresh  illustrations  of  the  same  thought.  In  his 
revision  Schiller  reduced  the  twenty-five  stanzas  of  the 
original  version  to  sixteen,  and  at  the  same  time 
omitted  or  toned  down  the  lines  that  had  given  offense. 
In  its  revised  form  it  is  in  every  way  a  better  poem. 

In  *  The  Artists  '  we  have  a  sonorous  panegyric  of 
Art  as  the  great  teacher  and  refiner  of  mankind.  The 
poem  shows  the  influence  of  Herder's  evolutionary 
speculations,  being  in  reality  nothing  less  than  a  con- 
densed history  of  civilization.  The  old  Rousseauite 
point  of  view  is  here  completely  abandoned.  No  more 
girding  at  the  degeneracy  of  the  *  ink-spattering  cen- 
tury ' !  The  opening  lines  glorify  the  modern  man  as 
the  *  ripest  son  of  time,  free  through  reason,  strong 
through  laws,  great  through  gentleness  '.  Then  the 
sublime  creature  is  admonished  not  to  forget  the  goddess 
who  made  him  what  he  is : 

In  industry  the  bee  may  scorn  thy  merits, 

In  cleverness  a  worm  thy  teacher  be  ; 

Thy  knowledge  thou  must  share  with  happier  spirits, 

But  Art,  O  Man,  is  all  for  thee.^ 

After  this  we  hear  that  man  entered  the  land  of  knowl- 
edge through  the  morning  gate  of  the  beautiful ;  it  was 
his  inchoate  art-sense  that  developed  his  understand- 
ing. The  heavenly  goddess  Urania,  whom  we  know 
here  as  Beauty  and  shall   one  day  known  as  Truth, 

1  In  the  original : 

Im  Fleisz  kann  dich  die  Biene  meistern. 
In  der  Geschicklichkeit  ein  Wurm  dein  Lehrer  sein, 
Dein  Wissen  teilest  du  mit  vorgezogenen  Geistem, 
Die  Kunst,  O  Mensch,  hast  du  allein. 


2i8  Anchored  in  Thuringia 

accompanied  him  into  the  exile  of  mortality  and  became 
his  loving  nurse,  teaching  him  to  live  by  her  law,  free 
from  wild  passion  and  from  the  bondage  of  duty.  To 
aid  her  in  this  work  she  chose  a  select  body  of  priests, 
the  artists,  and  taught  them  to  imitate  the  fair  forms  of 
nature.  In  the  contemplation  of  their  work  savage 
man  was  lifted  to  the  heights  of  spiritual  joy  and  forgot 
his  gross  appetites.  He  became  acquainted  with  ideals 
and  made  gods  and  heroes  for  himself.  Then  he  began 
to  weigh  and  compare  these  ideals  and  thus  arose 
philosophy  and  science,  which  aim  in  their  slow  and 
halting  way  to  explain  the  full  import  of  the  primeval 
revelation.  All  truth  was  given  in  symbols  at  the 
beginning,  and  the  artists  still  remain  the  conservators 
and  prophets  of  the  highest  spiritual  things. 

In  case  of  such  a  metrical  disquisition  it  is  not  easy 
to  separate  the  poetry,  which  in  places  is  very  good, 
from  the  intellectual  content,  which  is  not  so  good  from 
a  modern  point  of  view.  By  the  joint  aid  of  several 
sciences  laboriously  piecing  together  bits  of  knowledge 
that  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  goddess  Urania,  we 
have  learned  something  of  primitive  man,  and  what  we 
have  learned  is  very  much  out  of  tune  with  Schiller's 
dream.  He  assigns  to  the  aesthetic  thrill  a  larger  role 
than  it  has  actually  played  in  human  history.  This, 
however,  is  unimportant.  What  is  more  important  is 
that  by  investing  his  subject  with  a  nimbus  of  poetic 
mysticism  he  became  one  of  the  founders  of  the  modern 
Religion  of  Art.  For  the  theological  revelation  of 
truth  he  substitutes  a  secular  revelation  of  beauty, 
which,  however,  was  regarded  by  him  as  containing 
the  germs  of  all  truth  and  virtue.    We  see  him  moving 


The  Artists  219 

toward  a  theory  that  Truth,  Beauty  and  Goodness  are 
one,  and  that  Beauty  is  the  one.  To-day  these 
abstractions,  even  when  written  with  a  capital  initial, 
have  no  power  to  turn  the  heads  of  any  but  a  few  of 
the  hyperaesthetical.  For  Schiller's  contemporaries, 
aweary  of  rationalistic  narrowness  and  reaching  out 
after  new  sources  of  inspiration,  the  Religion  of  Art 
had  the  great  advantage  of  novelty.  It  laid  hold  of 
them  powerfully,  remaining,  however,  a  dignified  in- 
tellectual cult  which  was  quite  compatible  with  plain 
surroundings.  It  was  a  very  different  thing  from  the 
later  decorative  aestheticism. 

As  poetry  *  The  Artists  '  may  be  said  to  come  under 
the  head  of  metrical  rhetoric.  It  quite  lacks  the  sim- 
plicity and  sensuousness  of  Milton's  canon,  and  as  for 
passion,  it  is  florid  rather  than  passionate.  It  is  how- 
ever strong  in  Schiller's  strength, — in  its  vastness  of 
outlook,  its  splendid  sweep  of  thought,  its  magnificent 
phrase-making.  At  first  indeed  the  reader  is  disturbed 
and  perplexed  by  the  argument.  He  is  lifted  up  into 
the  blue  mists,  far  above  the  plane  of  the  verifiable, 
and  borne  along  hither  and  thither  by  successive  gusts 
of  the  poetic  afflatus.  Presently  he  is  lost;  there  is  no 
north  and  no  south.  By  dint  of  review  and  cogitation 
he  gets  his  bearings  (if  he  is  lucky),  but  only  to  lose 
them  again  as  he  is  wafted  on  through  the  empyrean. 
Not  until  he  has  read  the  poem  many  times,  knows 
where  he  is  going  and  is  no  longer  pestered  by  the 
necessity  of  thinking,  can  he  hope  to  enjoy  the  voyage. 

The  beginning  of  *  The  Ghostseer  * ,  published  while 
Schiller  was  still  in  Dresden,  was  spoken  of  in  Chapter 
VIII.     His  general  idea,  it  would  seem,  was  to  describe 


220  Anchored  in  Thuringia 

an  elaborate  and  fine-spun  intrigue  devised  by  mysteri- 
ous agents  of  the  Romish  Church  for  the  purpose  of 
winning  over  a  Protestant  German  prince.  But  the 
details  had  not  been  very  fully  excogitated,  and  his 
foremost  thought,  after  all,  was  simply  to  popularize 
the  Thaliuy  which  was  largely  caviare  to  the  general. 
The  experiment  proved  moderately  successful.  Curi- 
osity was  excited  and  inquiries  began  to  be  made. 
When,  therefore,  he  was  ready  to  resume  the  publica- 
tion of  the  Thalia^  in  the  spring  of  1788,  he  had  reason 
to  regard  '  The  Ghostseer  '  as  his  most  valuable  asset. 
He  set  about  continuing  the  story,  feeling  that  it  was 
*  miserable  daubing  '  and  a  *  sinful  waste  of  time  *.^  In 
this  temper  he  wrote  and  published  a  second  install- 
ment, which  carried  the  story  through  what  was  subse- 
quently known  as  the  first  book.  In  this  installment 
the  hoax  of  the  ghost  scene  is  cleared  up,  but  the 
Armenian  remains  a  mystery.  The  Prince  maintains 
a  sensible,  rationalistic  attitude,  asks  many  questions, 
puts  this  and  that  together  and  finally  concludes  that 
Armenian  and  Sicilian  are  two  charlatans  working  in 
collusion. 

Up  to  this  point  *  The  Ghostseer  '  is  a  well-told  and 
readable  yarn,  with  only  just  philosophizing  enough  to 
give  it  a  touch  of  dignity.  In  the  second  book  it  runs 
off  into  a  quagmire  of  abstruse  speculation.  Schiller 
had  got  the  idea — and  it  interested  him  for  personal 
reasons — of  carrying  his  hero  through  a  debauch  of 
skepticism.  This  he  thought  would  give  weight  and 
distinction  to  the  book.  So  the  Prince's  philosophic 
demoralization  is  described  at  tedious  length  and  the 

»  Letter  of  March  17,  to  KOrner. 


The  Ghostseer  221 

story  drops  out  of  sight  for  a  long  time.  Then  it  is 
taken  up  again  and  the  Prince  falls  in  love  with  a 
beautiful  Greek  religieuse.  The  portrayal  of  this 
woman  aroused  another  flicker  of  interest  on  Schiller's 
part,  though  she  too  was  finally  to  be  unmasked  as  one 
of  the  conspirators.  Then  he  seems  to  have  tired  of 
*  The  Ghostseer  '  altogether;  at  any  rate  he  choked  it 
off  suddenly  with  a  *  Farewell',  in  which  nothing 
is  concluded  save  that  the  Prince  goes  over  to  the 
Catholic  Church. 

From  this  description  it  is  evident  that  Schiller's  one 
attempt  at  novel-writing  is  of  no  great  account  as  a 
contribution  to  artistic  fiction.  It  is  a  torso  consisting 
of  two  heterogeneous  parts.  It  is  not  a  study  of  life 
based  upon  the  observation  of  life,  but  a  tale  of  mar- 
velous happenings  which  are  recounted  for  the  purpose 
of  showing  their  subtle  reaction  upon  the  plastic  mind 
of  the  Prince.  The  hero  is  taken  Over  a  route  that  was 
to  become  very  familiar, — the  route  from  a  narrow 
and  gloomy  type  of  Protestantism  through  liberalism, 
rationalism,  skepticism,  Pyrrhonism,  and  mental  ex- 
haustion to  the  repose  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Of 
course  the  story  was  not  to  end  there,  but  what  the 
further  developments  were  to  have  been  one  can  only 
guess.  Schiller  himself  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to 
enlighten  the  public,  even  after  his  *  Ghostseer  '  began 
to  call  out  imitations  and  continuations. 

In  the  '  Letters  upon  Don  Carlos  ',  published  in  1788, 
in  Wieland's  Merkur,  Schiller  undertook  to  defend 
himself  against  his  critics  and  to  correct  some  mis- 
apprehensions. In  temper  and  style  they  are  admira- 
ble, even  when  they  do  not  convince.     They  begin  by 


2  22  Anchored  in  Thuringia 

admitting  and  accounting  for  that  seeming  incongruity 
between  the  first  three  and  the  last  two  acts,  which  has 
always  been  the  gravamen  of  critical  objection  to  *  Don 
Carlos  '.  After  this  they  attempt  to  show  that  such 
a  character  as  Posa  might  very  well  have  existed  in  the 
sixteenth  century  at  the  Spanish  court.  Then  we  are 
told  that  it  was  not  the  author's  purpose  to  depict 
Carlos  and  Posa  as  a  pair  of  ideal  friends.  For  Carlos, 
indeed,  friendship  is  everything,  but  not  for  Posa. 
In  him  the  passion  for  friendship  is  everywhere  sub- 
ordinated to  the  passion  for  humanity.  He  is  not  to 
be  blamed,  therefore,  for  belying  the  character  of  a 
true  friend,  since  that  is  not  his  dominant  and  essential 
character.  He  regards  Carlos  merely  as  an  indispen- 
sable tool  for  his  political  designs.  In  his  interview 
with  the  king  he  is  carried  away  by  a  momentary 
enthusiasm, — what  he  says  there  is  of  no  importance, 
his  hopes  being  really  fixed  upon  Don  Carlos.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  fourth  act  he  sees  not  his  personal 
friend,  but  the  instrument  of  his  political  plans,  in 
awful  danger.  He  resolves  to  save  him  for  Flanders 
and  for  humanity  by  sacrificing  himself.  This  is  no 
more  unnatural  or  inconceivable  than  the  self-sacrifice 
of  Regulus.  But  Posa  wishes  to  save  his  friend  like  a 
god  and  not  like  a  common  level-headed  Philistine. 
He  has  the  soul  of  a  Plutarchian  hero,  and  where  two 
ways  present  themselves,  the  most  natural  is  for  him 
the  most  heroic.  Hence  his  desperate  procedure  and 
its  disastrous  consequences. 

To  all  of  which  one  can  give  but  a  qualified  assent, 
the  difficulty  being  that  the  play  is  not  so  constructed 
as  to  bring  out  its  author's  intention.     The  character 


The  Letters  on  Don  Carlos  223 

of  Posa  in  Act  IV  is  a  surprise,  and  a  disagreeable 
surprise.  His  conduct  may  harmonize  with  a  theory 
of  antique  heroism,  but  it  does  not  grow  naturally  out 
of  what  precedes.  There  is  no  exigency  that  calls  for 
his  heroic  foolhardiness.  The  reader  or  the  spectator 
can  hardly  be  supposed  to  know  that  the  famous  tenth 
scene  in  the  *third  act,  the  longest  and  most  carefully 
elaborated  in  the  whole  play,  does  not  count.  One 
naturally  supposes  that  it  does  count,  and  the  only  way 
it  can  count  is  to  create  a  hopeful  situation  of  which 
Posa  is  absolute  master.  When,  therefore,  he  throws 
away  his  advantage  and  deliberately  plunges  his  friend 
into  a  needless  danger,  in  order  to  make  an  opportunity 
for  rescuing  him  at  the  cost  of  his  own  life,  one  inevi- 
tably associates  him  mentally  not  with  antique  heroes 
but  with  modern  lunatics. 

A  man  capable  of  conceiving  such  a  hero  as  Posa, 
and  defending  the  conception  as  true  to  life,  could 
hardly  be  expected  to  adjust  his  mind  easily  to  such  a 
work  as  Goethe's  'Egmont'.  In  his  review  of  the 
play,  published  in  1788,  Schiller  found,  indeed,  much 
to  praise ;  but  his  general  praise  was  so  mixed  up  with 
general  fault-finding  as  to  produce  upon  the  Rudolstadt 
people  the  impression  of  a  naughty  lese-majeste.  He 
divined  correctly  enough  that  *  Egmont '  was  to  be 
regarded  as  a  drama  of  character,  rather  than  of  plot 
or  of  passion.  But  Egmont's  character  seemed  to  him 
painfully  lacking  in  'greatness'.  Egmont,  so  the 
criticism  runs,  really  does  nothing  extraordinary.  He 
is  idolized  by  the  people,  but  the  deeds  upon  which  his 
fame  rests  have  all  been  done  before  the  curtain  rises. 
In  the  play  he  appears  as  a  light-hearted  cavalier  who 


2  24  Anchored  in  Thuringia 

affronts  us  by  persistently  refusing  to  take  serious 
things  seriously.  In  particular  the  review  objected  to 
Goethe's  perversion  of  history  in  representing  Egmont 
not  as  a  married  man  with  a  large  family  of  children 
but  as  a  bachelor  with  a  bourgeois  sweetheart.  Not 
that  Schiller  regarded  the  departure  from  history  as 
reprehensible  in  itself.  The  dramatist  has  a  right  to 
pervert  facts  for  the  purpose  of  exciting  sympathy  for 
his  hero;  but  in  this  case,  Schiller  argued,  the  effect  is 
to  degrade  the  character  of  Egmont  and  thus  to 
alienate  sympathy.  Finally  the  review  took  exception 
to  Egmont' s  vision  of  Freedom  in  the  form  of  Clarchen ; 
this,  Schiller  thought,  was  a  deplorable  plunge  into 
opera  at  the  end  of  a  serious  drama. 

To  adjudicate  the  issue  thus  sharply  drawn  between 
the  two  great  German  poets  would  require  some  pre- 
liminary attention  to  their  fundamental  difference  of 
artistic  method, — a  subject  that  will  concern  us  in  a 
subsequent  chapter.  Here  suffice  it  to  remark  that 
Schiller  was  not  entirely  in  the  wrong.  While  Goethe 
was  incomparably  the  more  subtle  psychologist,  Schiller 
had  the  better  eye,  or  rather  he  cared  more,  for  that 
which  is  dramatically  effective,  average  human  nature 
being  such  as  it  is.  His  dramatic  instinct  told  him 
that  Egmont  was  not  a  very  powerful  stage-play.  Its 
subtle  psychology  did  not  impress  him  so  much  as  its 
lack  of  *  greatness*.  And  then  he  had  his  pique 
against  Goethe  and  wished  to  show  the  Weimarians 
that  he  at  least  could  perceive  the  spots  on  the  sun. 
Goethe's  serene  comment  upon  reading  the  critique 
was  to  the  effect  that  the  reviewer  had  analyzed  the 
moral  part  of  the  play  very  well  indeed,  but  in  dealing 


The  Misanthrope  225 

with  the  poetic  aspect  of  it  he  had  left  something  to 
be  done  by  others.^ 

The  dramatic  fragment,  *  The  Misanthrope  Recon- 
ciled ',  which  Schiller  fished  up  out  of  his  drawer  in 
1790  and  used,  faute  de  mieux^  to  fill  space  in  the 
eleventh  number  of  the  Thalia,  was  begun,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  Dresden.  Possibly  the  theme  may  have  been 
suggested  at  Mannheim  by  the  problem  of  staging 
Shakspere's  *Timon*.  At  any  rate  the  theme  was 
congenial  for  a  man  who  had  *  embraced  the  world  in 
glowing  passion  and  found  in  his  arms  a  lump  of  ice  ' . 
At  Weimar  he  returned  to  it  several  times,  puzzled 
over  the  general  plan,  added  a  little  here  and  there, 
but  finally  gave  it  up  as  a  bad  subject  for  dramatic 
treatment.  The  published  fragment  is  certainly  of  no 
great  account.  It  introduces  a  misanthrope,  Hutten 
by  name,  who,  as  feudal  lord,  treats  his  dependents 
handsomely  out  of  sheer  contempt  for  them.  When 
they  come  to  thank  him  on  his  birthday,  he  spurns  their 
gratitude  and  scolds  them,  having  made  up  his  mind 
never  to  be  duped  again  by  any  show  of  human  emotion. 
He  has  brought  up  his  beautiful  and  dutiful  daughter 
to  be  an  angel  of  mercy  and  a  paragon  of  perfection, 
but  he  insists  that  she  too  shall  be  a  misanthrope  like 
himself.  He  makes  her  swear  that  she  will  never 
marry,  but  she  shrewdly  tacks  on  the  proviso,  *  except 
with  papa's  consent '.  The  exposition  shows  her  duly 
in  love  with  a  cheerful  and  estimable  youth  named 
Rosenberg ;  and  the  problem  is :  How  will  Rosenberg 
manage  the  misanthrope  }  That  he  was  to  win  some- 
how is  evident  from  the  title. 

1  Letter  of  Oct.  i,  1788,  Goethe  to  Karl  August. 


226  Anchored  in  Thuringia 

In  his  translations  from  Euripides,  which  also  belong 
to  the  period  under  consideration,  Schiller  aimed  partly 
at  the  improvement  of  his  own  taste.  He  hoped  to 
familiarize  himself  with  the  spirit  of  the  Greeks  and  to 
acquire  something  of  their  manner.  He  thought  that 
they  might  teach  him  simplicity  both  in  expression  and 
in  the  construction  of  dramatic  plots ;  and  he  felt  that 
his  style  was  in  need  of  their  chastening  influence.  Of 
*  The  Phoenician  Women  '  he  translated  about  one- 
third,  but  omitted  the  choruses  entirely ;  of  the  '  Iphi- 
genia  in  Aulis  '  he  translated  nearly  the  whole  text, 
rendering  the  choruses  very  freely  in  rimed  lines  of 
uneven  length  and  varying  cadence.  His  work  reads 
smoothly  and  gives  the  general  effect  of  Euripides,  but 
cannot  count  as  good  translation.  It  was  not  only  that 
his  Greek  scholarship  was  deficient,  but  he  lacked 
patience, — an  indispensable  virtue  for  the  translator. 
His  real  original  was  not  the  Greek  text  at  all,  but  the 
Latin  version  of  Joshua  Barnes ;  and  when  this  appeared 
to  him  jejune  and  unpoetic  he  sometimes  created  an 
original  of  his  own. 

The  other  minor  writings  of  the  years  1788  and  1789 
may  be  passed  over  as  of  little  significance.  On  the 
poetic  side  there  were  three  or  four  occasional  poems, 
and  also  the  rimed  epistle  called  *  The  Celebrated 
Wife  ',  in  which  the  unfortunate  husband  of  a  literary 
lady  pours  out  the  tale  of  his  domestic  woes.  In  prose 
there  were  several  perfunctory  reviews  contributed  to 
the  Litter atur-Zeitung^  and  also  an  anecdote — exhumed 
from  an  old  chronicle  and  retold  for  the  Merkur — re- 
lating to  a  breakfast  given  to  the  Duke  of  Alva  by  the 
Countess  of  Schwarzburg  in  the  year  1547.     To  these 


Other  Minor  Writings  227 

may  be  added,  finally,  the  short  story  entitled  *  Play  of 
Fate  ',  also  published  in  the  Merkur,  which  describes, 
under  a  thin  disguise  of  fictitious  names,  the  rise  and 
fall  and  rehabilitation  of  Karl  Eugen's  former  minister, 
P.  H.  Rieger.i 

*  See  above,  page  135. 


CHAPTER   XI 
l)f0torica[  liXIlritinde 

Der  Mensch  verwandelt  sich  und  flieht  von  der  BUhne,  seine 
Meinungen  verwandeln  sich  und  fliehen  mit  ihm  ;  die  Geschichte 
allein  bleibt  unausgesetzt  auf  der  Buhne,  eine  unsterbliche 
Burgerin  aller  Nationen  und  Zeiten. — First  lecture  at  Jena. 

Schiller's  merit  as  a  writer  of  history  has  been 
much  discussed  and  very  differently  estimated  by  high 
authorities.  In  general  one  may  say  that  his  historical 
writings  have  fared  at  the  hands  of  experts  very  much 
like  the  scientific  writings  of  Goethe ;  both  being  treated 
as  the  rather  unimportant  incursions  of  a  poet  into  a 
field  which  he  had  not  the  training  or  the  patience  to 
cultivate  with  the  best  results.  Niebuhr's  adverse 
opinion  is  well  known  and  has  often  been  echoed  in 
one  form  or  another  by  later  critics.  On  the  other 
hand,  lovers  of  the  poet  are  very  apt  to  overestimate 
the  historian,  who  would  probably  be  seldom  heard  of 
to-day  if  he  had  not  achieved  immortal  fame  by  his 
plays  and  poems.  As  it  is,  his  historical  writings  have 
become,  for  better  or  worse,  a  part  of  the  classical 
literature  of  Germany,  and  as  such  we  have  to  reckon 
with  them. 

And  the  best  way  to  reckon  with  them  is  to  describe 
them  as  objectively  as  possible  and  to  consider  them 

228 


Schiller  as  a  Historian  229 

in  relation  to  the  intellectual  tendencies  of  Schiller's 
own  time.  We  shall  see  that  he  began  a  history  of 
the  Dutch  Rebellion  without  knowing  Dutch  or  Spanish, 
and  without  spending  any  time  in  a  preliminary  study 
of  the  original  sources  of  information.^  His  'History 
of  the  Thirty  Years'  War'  was  a  bread- winning  enter- 
prise, hastily  executed  for  a  ladies'  magazine.  For 
neither  work  did  he  draw  a  full  breath.  To  compare 
him,  therefore,  with  the  modern  giants  of  research, 
would  be  quite  absurd;  and  the  more  absurd  since 
Schiller  the  historian,  unlike  Goethe  the  scientist,  was 
extremely  modest  in  his  self-estimate  and  fully  aware 
of  his  limitations  on  the  side  of  scholarship. 

Of  the  qualities  that  go  to  the  making  of  a  great 
historian  he  had  two, — the  philosophic  mind  and  the 
vivid  imagination.  But  he  lacked  the  spirit  of  the  in- 
vestigator and  had  not  a  sufficient  reverence  for  the 
naked  fact.  History  interested  him  for  the  sake  of  his 
theories  and  his  pictures,  and  rhetoric  was  his  element. 
This  being  so  it  is  not  strange  that  we  get  from  him 
now  and  then  a  distorted  image.  Great  movements 
and  prominent  characters  are  depicted  by  him  in  ac- 
cordance with  his  freedom-loving,  cosmopolitan  pre- 
conception; and  his  study  was  not  to  correct  this  pre- 
conception by  a  survey  of  all  the  evidence,  but  rather  to 
select  that  which  would  confirm  his  view  in  a  striking 
manner.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  tale  of  his 
positive  error,  as  brought  to  light  by  the  critics,  is  not 
as  large  as  one  might  expect.     This  chapter  will  not 

^  It  is  to  be  taken  into  consideration  that  the  '  sources ',  as  the  word 
is  now  understood,  were  for  the  most  part  inaccessible  in  the  eighteenth 


23©  Historical  Writings 

deal  with  it  at  all,  but  rather  with  his  general  method 
and  point  of  view.  ^ 

*  The  Defection  of  the  Netherlands  '  was  begun  in 
the  summer  of  1787  and  grew  out  of  the  reading  of 
Watson's  '  Philip  the  Second  '.  This  book  impressed 
Schiller  strongly  and  he  attributed  its  fascination  to  the 
working  of  his  own  imaginative  faculty.  He  wished 
that  others  might  see  and  feel  what  he  had  seen  and 
felt.  So  he  began  to  retell  the  story  in  his  own  way, 
intending  at  first  only  a  brief  sketch.  As  he  proceeded, 
he  found  gaps  and  contradictions  and  isolated  facts  of 
obscure  import.  He  began  to  consult  the  authorities, 
not  so  much  to  increase  his  store  of  information  as  to 
clear  up  his  doubts.  In  this  way  the  intended  sketch 
expanded  ideally  into  a  six-volume  treatise  which 
should  present  the  history  of  the  Netherlands  from  the 
earliest  times  down  to  the  establishment  of  their  inde- 
pendence. Of  the  magnum  opus  thus  planned  the  first 
volume,  the  only  one  that  was  ever  written,  appeared 
in  the  autumn  of  1788,  in  three  books.  The  first  book 
sketched  the  history  of  the  Low  Countries  down  to  the 
Spanish  domination ;  the  second  dealt  with  the  regency 
of  Margaret  of  Parma,  and  the  third  with  the  conspiracy 
of  the  nobles,  ending  with  the  supersession  of  Margaret 
by  the  Duke  of  Alva,  in  1567.  Thus  the  most  dramatic 
period  of  the  great  struggle  was  not  reached.  Subse- 
quently, however,  the  narrative  was  supplemented  by 
two  separate  pictures,  '  The  Death  of  Egmont '   and 

^  The  subject  which  is  here  necessarily  treated  in  a  general  way  is 
discussed  much  more  fully  and  with  admirable  balance  by  K.  Toma- 
schek,  <*  Schiller  in  seinem  Verhaltnis  zur  Wissenschaft ",  Wien,  1862. 
Another  excellent  book,  if  used  with  some  care,  is  J.  Janssen's  '*  Schiller 
als  Historikcr  ",  Freiburg,  1879. 


The  Defection  of  the  Netherlands       231 

*  The  Siege  of  Antwerp  ',  which  in  the  edition  of  180 1 
were  first  printed  with  the  history. 

Letters  of  Schiller  indicate  that  for  a  while  at  least 
he  was  very  enthusiastic  in  his  new  pursuit.  He  found 
in  the  seeming  capriciousness  of  history  a  constant 
challenge  to  the  philosophic  mind,  and  he  enjoyed  the 
imaginative  exercise  of  investing  the  dry  bones  with 
muscles  and  nerves.  It  struck  him  that  the  inner 
necessity  was  much  the  same  in  history  as  in  a  work 
of  art.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  contend  that  the 
fame  of  the  historian  was  on  the  whole  preferable  to 
that  of  the  poet,  and  to  express  the  opinion  that  his 
own  nature  was  more  akin  to  that  of  Montesquieu  than 
to  that  of  Sophocles.  He  felt  that  he  was  getting  new 
ideas  and  expanding  his  soul  at  every  step.  '  Really, ' 
he  wrote  to  Korner  in  1788,  'I  find  each  day  that  I 
am  pretty  well  suited  to  the  business  I  am  now  carrying 
on.  Perhaps  there  are  better  men,  but  where  are  they  ? 
In  my  hands  history  is  becoming  something  in  many 
respects  different  from  what  it  has  been.' 

And  so  it  really  was.  In  point  of  readableness  *  The 
Defection  of  the  Netherlands  '  is  vastly  superior  to 
any  previous  historical  writing  in  the  German  language. 
The  stately  march  of  its  paragraphs,  each  bearing  the 
impress  of  a  serious  and  lofty  mind ;  the  care  with  which 
seemingly  small  matters  are  logically  connected  with 
great  issues,  the  mingling  of  philosophic  reflection  with 
the  narrative, — all  this  gave  to  the  work  an  air  of 
literary  distinction.  It  was  actually  interesting,  and 
this  was  much  in  a  land  that  had  no  historical  classics 
whatsoever.  To  be  interesting  was  what  Schiller 
frankly  aimed  at ;  he  wished  to  *  convince  one  portion 


^ 


232  Historical  Writings 

of  his  readers  that  history  might  be  written  with  fidelity 
to  the  facts,  but  without  becoming  a  trial  to  the 
reader's  patience;  and  another  portion  that  it  might 
borrow  something  from  a  kindred  art  without  becoming 
romance'.  And  he  succeeded.  In  reading  him  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  the  poetic  habit  of  conceiving  his 
characters  to  fit  a  preconceived  scheme,  his  vivid  im- 
agination, his  love  of  sharp  contrasts,  telling  analogies 
and  broad  generalizations,  occasionally  distort  the  true 
relation  of  things.  He  was  an  artist  rather  than  a 
scholar,  and  one  must  e'en  accept  him  as  such.  A 
letter  to  Karoline  von  Beulwitz  puts  the  matter  thus : 

I  shall  always  be  a  poor  authority  for  any  future  investigator 
who  has  the  misfortune  to  consult  me.  But  perhaps  at  the  ex- 
pense of  historic  truth  I  shall  find  readers,  and  here  and  there  I 
may  hit  upon  that  other  kind  of  truth  which  is  philosophic.  His- 
tory is  in  general  only  a  magazine  for  my  fancy,  and  the  objects 
must  content  themselves  with  the  form  they  take  under  my 
hands. 

The  animating  idea  of  '  The  Defection  of  the  Nether- 
lands '  is  the  same  that  Goethe  found  running  through 
all  the  writings  of  Schiller — tb^jd^^  nf  frf^f-Anxr]  From 
the  days  of  his  youth  'freedom',  however  unphilosoph- 
ically  he  might  think  about  it,  had  connoted  for  his 
imagination  the  highest  and  holiest  interest  of  mankind ; 
and  when  he  began  his  first  historical  work  his  en- 
thusiasm had  not  yet  been  sicklied  o'er  by  the  events 
of  the  Paris  Terror.  He  saw  in  the  Dutch  revolt  a 
glorious  battle  for  liberty;  the  struggle  of  a  small 
trading  population  against  the  proudest,  richest  and 
most  powerful  monarch  of  the  century;  a  cause  seem- 
ingly hopeless  at  first,  but  growing  stronger  through 


The  Defection  of  the  Netherlands        233 

pluck,  union,  tenacity  and  wise  leadership,  until  the 
Spanish  Goliath  was  completely  beaten.  It  was  mag- 
nificent and  Schiller  desired  that  his  countrymen  should 
feel  its  magnificence  and  take  to  heart  its  lesson.  So 
he  adorned  his  title-page  with  an  emblem  of  freedom, 
— a  broad-brimmed  hat  and  a  feather  upon  a  pole, — 
and  began  his  treatise  with  a  bugle-blast  that  left  no 
doubt  of  his  purpose :  *  I  have  thought  it  worth  while 
to  set  up  before  the  world  this  fair  monument  of  civic 
strength,  in  order  to  waken  in  the  breast  of  my  people 
a  joyous  self-consciousness,  and  to  give  a  fresh  and 
pertinent  example  of  what  men  may  venture  for  a  good 
cause  and  may  accomplish  by  united  action.  * 

A  remarkable  passage  of  the  introduction  runs  as 
follows : 

Let  no  one  expect  to  read  here  of  towering,  colossal  men,  or 
of  amazing  deeds  such  as  the  history  of  earlier  times  offers  in 
such  abundance.  Those  times  are  past,  those  men  are  no  more. 
In  the  soft  lap  of  refinement  we  have  allowed  the  powers  to 
languish  which  those  ages  exercised  and  made  necessary.  With 
humble  admiration  we  gaze  now  at  those  gigantic  forms,  as  a 
nerveless  old  man  at  the  manly  sports  of  youth.  Not  so  in  the  case 
of  this  history.  The  people  that  we  here  see  upon  the  stage  were 
the  most  peaceful  in  this  part  of  the  world,  and  less  capable  than 
their  neighbors  of  that  heroic  spirit  which  gives  sublimity  to 
even  the  most  paltry  action.  The  pressure  of  circumstances 
surprised  this  people  into  a  knowledge  of  their  own  strength, 
forcing  upon  them  a  transitory  greatness  which  did  not  be- 
long to  them  and  which  they  perhaps  will  never  again  exhibit. 
So  then  the  strength  they  manifested  has  not  vanished  from 
among  us,  and  the  success  which  crowned  their  desperate  ad- 
venture will  not  be  denied  to  us  if,  in  the  lapse  of  time,  similar 
occasions  call  us  to  similar  deeds. 

One  sees  from  this  that  Schiller  is  halting  between 


234  Historical  Writings 

the  poetic  and  the  scientific  view  of  the  past,  uncertain 
which  way  to  set  his  face.  The  poet  in  him  is  inclined 
to  idealize  the  brave  days  of  old  and  to  mourn  that  the 
ancient  giants  are  no  more.  At  the  same  time  he  finds 
that  the  struggle  of  the  Low  Countries,  while  not 
'heroic',  was  very  remarkable,  very  instructive  and 
very  inspiring.  From  this  observation  it  is  but  a  step 
to  the  recognition  of  the  truth  that  it  is  his  own  con- 
ventional notion  of  '  heroism  '  that  needs  revising ;  that 
the  giants  of  yore  were  no  taller  than  those  of  to-day 
and  that  the  world's  supply  of  courage  and  devotion  is 
not  running  low.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  the 
sentence  beginning,  '  So  then  the  strength  they  mani- 
fested', was  omitted  by  Schiller  from  the  edition  of 
1 80 1,  possibly  because  the  horrors  of  the  Revolution 
had  put  him  out  of  humor  with  fighting.  But  he  might 
well  have  allowed  the  words  to  stand.  Their  truth 
was  soon  to  be  memorably'  proved  by  the  German 
uprising  against  Napoleon. 

A  German  writer  ^  remarks  correctly  that  Schiller 
occupies  with  Kant  a  middle  stage  between  the  older 
pragmatic  historians,  upon  whom  Faust  ^  pours  his 
scathing  ridicule,  and  the  later  school  of  Ranke,  whose 
principle  was  to  extinguish  self  and  simply  tell  what 
happened  and  how.  He  does  not  moralize  like  his 
predecessors,  nor  is  he  guilty  of  treating  the  distant 
past  with  patronizing  condescension.  At  the  same 
time  he  wishes  to  instruct  and  does  not  hesitate  to  point 

1  Otto  Brahm,  "  Schiller",  II,  209. 

'  Was  ihr  den  Geist  der  Zeiten  heiszt, 
Das  ist  im  Grund  der  Herren  eigner  Geist 
In  dem  die  Zeiten  sich  bespiegeln.  —  *  Faust\  Hrus  $77-^' 


The  Defection  of  the  Netherlands        235 

out  where  the  instruction  is  to  be  found.  He  aims  to 
be  impartial  to  the  extent  of  giving  both  sides  a  hear- 
ing, but  he  imputes  motives  freely  and  does  not  pretend 
to  extinguish  self.  Probably  the  effort  to  do  so  would 
have  seemed  to  him  absurd.  His  sympathy  is  of  course 
with  the  Netherlanders,  but  he  writes  as  a  philosophic 
champion  of  freedom  rather  than  as  a  partisan  of 
Protestantism.  His  concern  is  not  to  excite  indigna- 
tion at  the  colossal  wickedness  of  Philip  and  Alva,  but 
to  show  up  their  colossal  folly.  As  we  should  expect 
he  devotes  his  best  powers  to  his  portraits,  some  of 
which, — as  those  of  Margaret,  Granvella,  Egmont  and 
Orange, — are  deservedly  famous.  At  the  same  time 
they  are  subject  to  correction  from  the  documents. 
Thus  the  crafty  politician,  William  the  Silent,  in  whom 
there  was  very  little  of  the  strenuous  idealist,  is  pre- 
sented as  a  *  second  Brutus,  who,  far  above  timid 
selfishness,  magnanimously  renounces  his  princely 
station,  descends  to  voluntary  poverty,  becomes  a 
citizen  of  the  world  and  consecrates  himself  to  the 
cause  of  freedom  '. 

From  what  has  been  said  it  is  clear  that  Schiller  , 
regarded  the  writing  of  history  as  essentially  an  exer-/ 
cise  of  the  creative  imagination.     And  such  in  a  sensel 
it  really  is  and  always  must  be,  since  no  historian  can' 
divest  himself  of  his  own  personality.      He  will  inevi- 
tably see  the  events  with  his  own  eyes  and  put  his  own 
construction  upon  them.      His  very  arrangement  of  his 
materials,   his   distribution    of  lights    and    shades,   his 
selection  of  the  matters  to  be  recorded  and  commented 
upon,  will  involve  a  subjective  coloring  of  his  narrative. 
This  being  so,  one  cannot  reasonably  criticize  Schiller 


236  Historical  Writings 

for  having  his  point  of  view,  but  only  for  taking  too 
little  trouble  in  the  gathering  and  verification  of  his 
facts.  He  did  not  think  it  important  to  study  his  sub- 
ject from  first-hand  sources  of  information.  He  quotes 
more  than  a  score  of  authorities  in  Latin,  French  and 
German,  but  he  uses  them  quite  uncritically,  and  chiefly, 
it  would  seem,  to  give  his  work  a  semblance  of  learn- 
ing. The  facts  were  for  him  nothing  but  the  raw 
material  of  history;  the  important  thing  was  their 
philosophic  truth,  that  is,  the  intellectual  formula  that 
should  explain  them.  In  our  day  we  have  grown  dis- 
trustful of  the  'philosophy  of  history',  especially  of 
any  philosophy  that  does  not  rest  upon  a  basis  of  long 
and  thorough  investigation. 

'  The  Defection  of  the  Netherlands  '  was  very  favor- 
ably received  by  the  German  public.  Its  merits  lay 
on  the  surface,  while  its  defects  were  not  patent  to  the 
casual  reader.  Every  one  felt  that  Schiller  had  set  a 
new  pattern  for  historical  composition.  In  his  hands 
history  had  become  literature.  With  such  an  achieve- 
ment to  his  credit  it  was  natural  that  his  dehit  in  Jena 
should  be  looked  forward  to  in  academic  circles  as  a 
great  occasion.  Feeling  that  much  would  be  expected 
of  him  he  prepared  with  great  care  his  inaugural  dis- 
course upon  the  study  of  universal  histor3^  The 
address,  which  was  subsequently  published  in  the 
Merkur,  begins  with  a  vigorous  elucidation  of  the  differ- 
ence between  the  bread-and-butter  scholar  and  the 
philosophic  thinker.  The  former  is  depicted  in  caustic 
terms  as  a  narrow,  selfish,  timorous  time-server.  He 
is  the  enemy  of  reform  and  discovery,  because  he  is 
forever  dreading  that  the  enlargement  of  the  human 


First  Lecture  at  Jena  237 

outlook  may  disturb  his  little  private  routine.  He  cares 
for  truth  only  so  far  as  it  can  be  turned  to  his  personal 
gain  in  the  form  of  money,  praise  or  princely  favor. 
The  philosophic  thinker,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  joyous 
lover  of  his  kind.  Feeling  the  essential  solidarity  of 
all  knowledge  he  seeks  ever  for  the  unifying  principle. 
He  loves  truth  for  its  own  sake.  Every  advance  of 
knowledge  is  welcome  to  him,  and  he  willingly  sees 
his  private  edifice  go  to  ruin  for  the  joy  of  building  a 
new  and  better  one.  Then  the  lecture  proceeds  to 
describe  the  splendid  progress  of  the  human  race. 
The  task  of  universal  history  is  declared  to  be  the 
explanation  of  this  evolutionary  process.  It  must  show 
how  all  things  hang  together,  and,  selecting  for  descrip- 
tion those  portions  of  the  record  which  have  a  more 
obvious  bearing  upon  the  present  form  of  the  world,  it 
must  seek  to  bring  home  to  the  modern  man  the  full 
import  of  his  heirship. 

In  this  address  we  begin  to  trace  the  influence  of 
Kant,  whose  'Idea  of  aUniversal  History  in  aCosmopoli- 
tan  Spirit ',  published  in  1784,  was  read  by  Schiller  with 
great  interest.  The  leading  thoughts  of  this  memo- 
rable paper,  new  then  but  very  familiar  now,  are  that 
the  race  and  not  the  individual  is  nature's  concern  in 
her  scheme  of  man's  perfectibility;  that  the  only  per- 
fection and  happiness  possible  to  him  are  those  which 
he  creates  for  himself  by  the  progressive  triumph  of 
reason  over  instinct;  that  the  fighting-spirit,  antago- 
nisms, wars,  the  madness  and  the  calamity  of  the  indi- 
vidual, are  the  necessary  condition  of  race-progress; 
that  the  goal  is  a  just  civil  society,  which  in  turn,  since 
man  is  an  animal  that  needs  a  master,  is  inseparable 


238  Historical  Writings 

from  the  idea  of  a  law-governed  state.  Thus,  while 
Herder's  formula  for  the  great  evolutionary  process  was 
the  upbuilding  of  the  individual  man  to  humanity,  that 
of  Kant  was  the  preparation  of  man  for  a  free  citizen- 
ship which  should  ultimately  embrace  the  world. 

By  the  general  bent  of  his  mind  Schiller  was  nearer 
to  the  humane  idealism  of  Herder  than  to  the  law- 
governed  collectivism  of  Kant.  At  the  same  time  we 
can  see  from  many  a  sentence  in  his  inaugural  address 
that  the  far  more  rigorous  logic  of  the  Konigsberg 
philosopher  had  had  its  effect  upon  him.  In  particular 
he  was  captivated  by  the  idea  that  the  individual  exists 
for  the  sake  of  the  race,  and  that  the  gruesome  an- 
tagonisms of  history  are  therefore  to  be  regarded  with 
composure  as  the  birth-pains  of  the  modern  man.  A 
striking  passage  of  the  lecture  runs  thus : 

History,  like  the  Homeric  Zeus,  looks  down  with  the  same 
cheerful  countenance  upon  the  bloody  works  of  war  and  upon 
the  peaceful  peoples  that  innocently  nourish  themselves  upon 
the  milk  of  their  herds.  However  lawlessly  the  freedom  of  man 
may  seem  to  operate  upon  the  course  of  the  world,  she  gazes 
calmly  at  the  confused  spectacle  ;  for  her  far-reaching  eye  dis- 
covers even  from  a  distance  where  this  seemingly  lawless  free- 
dom is  led  by  the  cord  of  necessity.  .  .  .  History  saves  us  from 
an  exaggerated  admiration  of  antiquity  and  from  a  childish 
longing  for  the  past.  Reminded  by  her  of  our  own  possessions 
we  cease  to  wish  for  a  return  of  the  lauded  golden  age  of  Alex- 
ander or  of  Caesar. 

From  this  way  of  thinking  it  seems  but  a  span  to  the 
modern  scientific  point  of  view;  for  that,  however, 
neither  Schiller  nor  Kant  was  ripe,  since  both  thought 
it  necessary  to  assume  that  human  history  began  about 


Influence  of  Kant  239 

six  thousand  years  ago  and  began  substantially  as 
reported  in  Genesis,  however  the  original  authentic 
tradition  might  have  been  incrusted  with  spurious 
supernaturalism.  The  explanation  of  society  thus 
resolved  itself  for  them  into  the  problem  of  a  rational 
interpretation  of  the  Bible.  Kant  believed,  like  Rous- 
seau, in  an  original  paradisaic  condition,  in  which  man 
had  lived  as  a  happy,  peaceful  animal.  But  while  man's 
emergence  from  that  state  was  regarded  by  Rousseau 
as  a  disaster,  the  selfish  passions,  with  their  resulting 
antagonisms,  were  conceived  by  Kant  as  the  sine  qua 
non  of  rational  development.  This  thought,  with  its 
corollaries,  was  set  forth  by  Kant  in  an  essay  of  the 
year  1786,  entitled  'Conjectural  Beginning  ot  Human 
History'.  The  Fall  is  there  explained  as  a  good 
thing,  the  story  in  Genesis  being  interpreted  as  a 
symbol  of  the  emergence  of  man  from  the  estate  of  a 
peaceful  but  instinct-governed  animal  to  that  of  a 
quarrelsome  but  rational  being.  Kant's  line  of  reason- 
ing interested  Schiller  deeply,  and  in  1 790  he  published 
in  the  Thalia  a  paper  upon  the  same  general  subject. 
It  was  entitled  *  Something  about  the  First  Human 
Society  on  the  Basis  of  the  Mosaic  Record  '. 

Portions  of  this  essay,  with  its  naive  license  of 
affirmation,  would  make  a  modern  anthropologist 
shudder.  It  begins  with  a  description  of  the  original 
paradise,  from  which  the  infant  man  was  to  be  led  forth 
into  life  by  Providence,  his  watchful  nurse.  To  quote 
a  few  words : 

By  means  of  hunger  and  thirst  She  showed  him  [let  us  keep 
the  feminine  providence  of  the  German]  the  need  of  nourish- 
ment ;  what  he  required  for  the  satisfaction  of  his  needs  She  had 


240  Historical  Writings 

placed  around  him  in  rich  abundance  ;  and  by  the  senses  of  smell 
and  taste  She  guided  him  in  his  choice.  By  means  of  a  mild 
climate  She  had  spared  his  nakedness,  and  through  a  universal 
peace  round  about  him  She  had  secured  his  defenceless  exist- 
ence. For  the  preservation  of  his  kind  provision  was  made  in 
the  sexual  impulse.  As  plant  and  animal  man  was  complete. 
...  If,  now,  we  regard  the  voice  of  God  which  forbade  the  tree 
of  knowledge  as  simply  the  voice  of  instinct  warning  man  away 
from  this  tree,  then  the  eating  of  the  fruit  becomes  merely  a  de- 
fection from  instinct,  that  is,  the  first  manifestation  of  rational 
independence,  the  origin  of  moral  being ;  and  this  defection 
from  instinct,  which  brought  moral  evil  into  the  world,  but  at 
the  same  time  made  moral  good  possible,  was  incontestably  the 
happiest  and  greatest  event  in  the  history  of  mankind. 

It  has  seemed  worth  while  to  linger  a  moment  over 
these  two  rather  unimportant  productions  for  the  sake 
of  the  light  they  throw  on  Schiller's  general  attitude. 
One  sees  that  remote  antiquity  has  lost  in  his  eyes 
something  of  its  old  poetic  glamour.  He  is  content  to 
explain  it  like  any  rationalizing  professor.  The  past 
interests  him  mainly  for  the  sake  of  the  present,  and  of 
the  present  he  now  has  a  very  good  opinion, — especially 
of  the  Goddess  of  Reason.  He  did  not  know  what  a 
terrible  trial  was  preparing  for  this  goddess  and  her 
self-complacent  worshippers.  Ere  long  he  himself  was 
destined  to  lose  a  little  of  his  buoyant  faith  in  her  and 
to  become  in  part  responsible  for  the  apostasy  of  many. 
For  the  present,  however,  it  was  no  inchoate  Romanti- 
cism, but  a  publisher's  enterprise,  that  led  him  into  the 
study  of  the  Middle  Ages.  He  had  undertaken  to  edit 
a  great  '  Collection  of  Historical  Memoirs  '.  There 
were  to  be  several  volumes  each  year  for  an  indefinite 
time;  the  volumes  to  consist  of  translations  from  various 


The  Historical  Memoirs  241 

languages  and  to  cover  European  history  from  the 
twelfth  century  down.  Schiller  was  to  supervise  the 
undertaking  and  furnish  the  needful  introductions.  His 
plans  were  presently  thwarted  by  illness  and  then  by 
his  increasing  interest  in  philosophic  studies;  so  that 
after  the  first  few  volumes  had  appeared  he  withdrew 
and  left  the  continuation  of  the  *  Memoirs  '  to  other 
hands. 

Of  his  various  contributions  to  the  initial  volumes  of 
the  '  Historical  Memoirs  '  a  part  are  mere  hack-work 
and  therefore  devoid  of  biographical  interest.  Some- 
what different  is  the  case  with  an  elaborate  account  of 
the  crusades,  in  which  he  attempts  to  show  that  that 
great  medieval  madness, — so  it  was  regarded  by  the 
Age  of  Enlightenment, — was  *  in  its  origin  too  natural 
to  excite  our  surprise  and  in  its  consequences  too  be- 
neficent to  convert  our  displeasure  into  a  very  different 
feeling  *.  The  general  argument  is  that  the  ancient 
civilizations  were  dominated  by  the  idea  of  the  state ; 
they  produced  excellent  Greeks  and  Romans  but  not 
excellent  men.  The  prestige  of  the  despotic  states 
was  destroyed  by  the  great  migrations,  but  it  was  the 
crusades  which  first  taught  the  nations  to  subordinate 
patriotism  to  a  higher  and  broader  sentiment.  It  was 
then  that  men  learned  to  fight  for  an  idea  of  the  reason, 
— for  the  truth  as  they  saw  it.  And  thus  the  crusades 
prepared  the  way  for  the  Reformation.  The  interest 
of  the  essay  lies  not  in  the  vigor  of  its  logic,  which  is 
lame  here  and  there,  but  in  the  evidence  it  affords  of 
Schiller's  increasing  respect  for  the  Middle  Ages. 
And  he  went  further  still.  In  a  preface  which  he  wrote 
in  1792,  for  a  German  translation  of  Vertot's  work  on 


242  Historical  Writings 

the  Knights  of  Malta,  we  find  a  passage  which  sounds 
very  much  like  inchoate  Romanticism : 

The  contempt  we  feel  lor  that  period  of  superstition,  fanati- 
cism and  mental  slavery  betrays  not  so  much  the  laudable  pride 
of  conscious  strength  as  the  petty  triumph  of  weakness  aveng- 
ing itself  in  unimportant  mockery  for  the  shame  wrung  from  it 
by  superior  merit.  .  .  .  The  advantage  of  clearer  ideas,  of  van- 
quished prejudice,  of  more  subdued  passions,  of  freer  ways  of 
thinking  (if  we  really  can  claim  this  credit),  costs  us  the  great 
sacrifice  of  active  virtue,  without  which  our  better  knowledge 
can  hardly  be  counted  as  a  gain.  The  same  culture  that  has 
extinguished  in  our  brains  the  fire  of  fanatical  zeal  has  also 
smothered  the  glow  of  inspiration  in  our  hearts,  clipped  the 
wings  of  our  sentiment,  and  destroyed  our  doughty  energy  of 
character.  .  .  .  Granted  that  the  period  of  the  crusades  was 
a  long  and  sad  stagnation  of  culture,  and  even  a  return  of 
Europe  to  its  former  barbarism  ;  still,  humanity  had  clearly 
never  before  been  so  near  to  its  highest  dignity  as  it  was  then, — 
if  indeed  it  is  a  settled  doctrine  that  the  essence  of  man's  dignity 
is  the  subordination  of  his  feelings  to  his  ideas. 

We  see  that  Schiller,  though  he  was  in  no  danger  of 
becoming  a  renegade  on  the  main  issue,  had  his  moods 
of  disgust,  as  Goethe  and  Herder  had  had  before  him, 
at  the  shallow  self-complacency  of  the  Age  of  En- 
lightenment. 

In  comparison  with  these  disconnected  and  more  or 
less  perfunctory  studies,  the  '  History  of  the  Thirty 
Years'  War  '  seems  like  a  large  undertaking.  But  it 
was  not  so  conceived  at  first.  While  *  The  Defection 
of  the  Netherlands  '  is  the  fragment  of  a  great  project, 
the  '  Thirty  Years*  War  '  is  the  expansion  of  a  small 
one.  We  first  hear  of  it  in  a  letter  of  December,  1789, 
wherein  Schiller,  just  then  casting  about  eagerly  for 


The  Thirty  Years'  War 


243 


possibilities  of  income,  informs  Korner  that  he  is  to 
have  four  hundred  thalers  from  Goschen  for  an  '  essay  ' 
upon  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  to  be  published  in  the 
♦  Historical  Calendar  for  Ladies  '.  He  felicitates  him- 
self that  the  labor  will  be  light,  since  the  material  is  so 
abundant  and  he  is  to  write  only  for  amateurs.  The 
following  spring  he  took  up  his  task,  which  then  grew 
upon  his  hands  as  he  proceeded.  Two  books  were 
printed  in  the  '  Calend&r  '  for  1791,  a  third  in  1792, 
the  fourth,  and  also  a  separate  book-edition,  in  1793. 
It  met  with  great  favor,  the  sales  running  up  to  seven 
thousand,  and  the  author  winning  the  name  of  Ger- 
many's greatest  historian. 

And,  indeed,  it  does  exhibit  Schiller's  historical  style 
at  its  best,  there  being  here,  in  comparison  with  his 
earlier  work,  somewhat  less  of  heavy  philosophical 
ballast.  The  narrative  moves  more  lightly.  There  is 
this  time  not  even  a  pretense  of  erudite  scholarship. 
He  does  not  quote  authorities,  rarely  indulges  in 
polemic,  avoids  tedious  'negotiations  '  and  all  political 
disquisitions  which  might  be  dull  reading  to  the  *  female 
fellow-citizens  '  for  whom  he  writes.  He  endeavors 
merely  to  tell  his  complicated  story  in  a  lucid  and 
interesting  manner.  The  third  book,  which  describes 
the  career  of  Gustav  Adolf  from  the  great  battle  of 
Breitenfeld,  in  173 1,  to  his  death  at_Lutzen  in  the  fol- 
lowing year,  is  an  admirable  specimen  of  vivid  historical 
writing.  It  may  well  be  doubted  whether  any  suc- 
cessors of  Schiller  have  surpassed  him  in  the  art  of 
narrating,  though  they  may  have  been  able  to  correct 
him  here  and  there  in  matters  of  fact.  What  a  telling 
description,   for  example,   is    that    of   the    desperate 


244  Historical  Writings 

charge  at  Liitzen  just  after  the  death  of  the  Swedish 
king! 

In  his  last  historical  work,  just  as  in  his  first,  the 
burden  of  Schiller's  thought  is  evermore  the  idea  of 
freedom.  The  Tiikty  Years^JWar  is  conceived  by  him 
aTThe  successful  struggle  ofjGrrman  lij^j^tlyL^^^j^;!!^ 
Hapsburg  imgerialism.  Upon  the  abstract  merits  of 
the  religious  controversy  he  has  little  to  say;  the 
subject  evidently  does  not  interest  him.  He  does 
indeed  make  himself  the  champion  of  Protestantism, 
but  only  because  Protestantism  is  identified  in  his  mind 
with  the  august  cause  of  liberty.  The  Protestant  princes 
fought,  he  tells  us,  for  what  they  took  to  be  the  truth, 
— whether  it  really  was  the  truth  does  not  matter. 
Their  motives  were  not  always  lofty  and  their  historian 
is  not  in  the  least  concerned  to  hide  or  to  gloss  over 
their  frequent  venality  and  selfishness.  His  point  of 
view  is  that  they  fought  for  a  higher  good  than  that 
which  their  eyes  were  fixed  upon,  and  this  higher 
good  was  the  advancement  of  free  cosmopolitanism. 
'Europe',  he  writes  in  his  introductory  reflections, 
*  emerged  unsubdued  and  free  from  this  terrible  war 
in  which,  for  the  first  time,  it  had  recognized  itself  as 
a  connected  society  of  states ;  and  this  interest  of  the 
states  in  one  another,  to  which  the  war  first  gave  rise, 
would  alone  be  a  sufficient  gain  to  reconcile  the  citizens 
of  the  world  to  its  horrors.  The  hand  of  industry  has 
gradually  obliterated  the  evil  effects  of  the  struggle, 
but  its  beneficent  consequences  have  remained. ' 

Our  historian,  it  is  plain,  was  very  firmly  convinced 
that  his  own  cosmopolitanism  was  a  European  finality 
and  was  worth  all  that  it  had  cost.     What  would  he 


The  Thirty  Years'  War  245 

have  said  if  he  could  have  looked  ahead  a  hundred 
years  and  beheld  the  nations  still  snarling  at  each 
other's  heels  in  the  same  old  way! 

It  is  pertinent  to  observe  in  this  connection  that 
Schiller's  enthusiasm  for  liberty  is  quite  unaffected  by 
the  'ideas  of  1789 '.  Neither  in  his  letters  nor  else- 
where does  he  manifest  any  strong  sympathy  with  the 
revolutionary  aims  of  the  French  democracy.  Liberty 
is  for  him  the  perfect  fruitage  of  the  benevolent  des- 
potism. It  is  something  that  concerns  the  prince  in 
his  relation  to  some  other  prince,  rather  than  in  relation 
to  his  own  subjects.  Of  the  German  people  at  the 
time  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  he  has  but  little  to  say, 
his  thoughts  being  fixed  always  upon  the  leaders. 
His  great  hero  is  Gustav  Adolf,  whom  he  regards  at 
first  as  the  unselfish  champion  of  German  freedom. 
Little  by  little,  however,  the  portrait  of  the  king  under- 
goes a  change:  the  ideal  knight  of  Protestantism  shades 
off  into  the  earthy  politician  and  selfish  conqueror. 
And  when  at  last  death  overtakes  him  his  historian  is 
prepared  to  admit  that  the  event  was  fortunate  for  his 
own  royal  renown  and  for  the  welfare  of  Germany. 
A  part  of  his  final  estimate  runs  thus : 

Unmistakably  the  ambition  of  the  Swedish  monarch  aimed  at 
such  power  in  Germany  as  was  incompatible  with  the  freedom 
of  the  Estates,  and  at  a  permanent  possession  in  the  heart  of 
the  Empire.  His  goal  was  the  Imperial  throne ;  and  this  dig- 
nity, supported  and  made  efficient  by  his  activity,  was  in  his 
hands  liable  to  far  greater  abuse  than  was  to  be  feared  from  the 
race  of  Hapsburg.  A  foreigner  by  birth,  brought  up  in  the 
maxims  of  absolutism,  and  in  his  pious  enthusiasm  a  declared 
enemy  of  all  papists,  he  was  not  the  man  to  guard  the  sanctuary 


^/ 


246  Historical  Writings 

of  the  German  constitution,  or  to  respect  the  freedom  of  the 
Estates. 

After  the  death  of  Gustav  Adolf  the  focus  of  interest 
is  Wallenstein,  and  when  Wallenstein  is  disposed  of 
the  history  soon  becomes  a  lean  and  hurried  summary, 
the  perfunctory  character  of  which  is  quite  obvious  to 
the  reader. 


n 


^..^^  J^   L^  ^7^/^   /^ 


MAt^    1^*.i 


HTHia    I'lHT 


H3H^O>I    OT    q^JJIfOa   TO   513TT3J    A    WO^IT 
Zu  einej   Zdt, 
zu  zeigen,  - 
tasiflp  uidBiif 

Its 


Thk  vear 


iio   <;bjift   0U91T   •jJ'^C     .otinxic   m^i^ 
to  him.     'T^ 


>oit  9ni*9m  jsafe  ^  nsdshsa  ^iia  Hnr  no^oCJJ  opinio  i^in  Iqitrfihs^B 

^^SM^^  (:Mi^MfM  ot<5  ifm  st^om  ii9rI(>nn]9S)  slffms^itjt  o|^wmmi 

.r  -f  Tsrnmocl  nof,rfr)g  nsfoi^J  Ai  9i(5  ,$f(liani''^fl 

<^tff  ci'3-JfJjiC  -fsS 'end  ;  isidi  ]ii;<$5(l  94io3er  9tu§  anhm-^birlC 

*  and  I  no  I  >:  '^cftrJi  ^«d  idch  ^id    .siiixBdD  ^  sr}  §f>«S^\gifiioJr 
later  to  \v 
dearrr    tr> 


From  ? 

only   as    ,  uil, 

academic  *    .  .  .,   iws  H*-*/ 
1790,  to  lecture  upon  i 


X  ■^.  ^ 


r 


'*^  FJ'Sm   JTWTER'^SCHILI.KR    to   KdKi^Bft^*-^-, 


y 


y 


.^x, 


IKtinc  t^crjltci^ften  (5iurfij>unfd?e  ju  6cm  cnbltd?  anacfangtcij, 
§ta«iml^al)<r  *5cs  irornerifd^eti  (Sefct?ifeil?ts,  bint  4d?  mcirt«n^<H^eii. 
^W^  'i^}^\^'  .3<;l^'  f^2"C  mid?  curef  ^freubc  unb  bin  iu  bi^cni 
2tugeji|>iic!  rf)it^r<  cud?,  fie^niteufi^^  3u  tl)^ilfn./'tt)arum  ftjrih  i<5? 
ifbcrt^aupfrttt!^  cimgc;it>ip<^cn  mit  cuc^  rUflcbcn  ^  Zlkr  mcine.v«fi^ 
immcr  fo  un9eiJjiffC:  C5|f^nbb^^|  ma^tc  imr  bic  2^l)c  unb  0rbtt^g 
l|6d?fl  nott^^f  bic  i^  bicfcn  gan^cn  5«mmc/"  hobc  cntbcjircn  itrujtht. 
tlnd?  meinC'gutc/€ottc  bcba»f.  UJVcr ;  b^s  ieibcn  bt^gi  !lj^,v^  l?*it 
tt^rcn,  Jd?n?ad?cn  Korpcr  fctjr  an^egriffcn,  unb  je^t  tft  cs-t^wtjgcnb 
not|>i^,.bfi§  fie  fid?  abtparte.    Dig  ibat  aud?  Urfac^e  '*'  ' 


•-'»^.•^»-^k^ 


'^i?^ 


CHAPTER   XII 
Darft  2)aB0  llClitbin  anO  mubout 

1791-1794 

Zu  einer  Zeit,  wo  das  Leben  anfing,  mir  seinen  ganzen  Wert 
zu  zeigen,  wo  ich  nahe  dabei  war,  zwischen  Vernunft  und  Phan- 
tasie  in  mir  ein  zartes  und  ewiges  Band  zu  kniipfen,  .  .  .  nahte 
sich  mir  der  Tod. — Letter  of  1791. 

The  year  1790  was  the  happiest  of  Schiller's  life. 
For  a  little  while,  at  last,  fate  became  supremely  kind 
to  him.  The  reality  of  wedlock  more  than  fulfilled  his 
dreams,  and  it  seemed  as  if  all  his  vague  malheur 
d' etre  poete  were  about  to  be  buried  in  the  deep  bosom 
of  connubial  beatitude.  *  We  lead  the  blessedest  life 
together ' ,  he  wrote  to  Christophine  Reinwald  in  May, 
*  and  I  no  longer  know  my  former  self. '  And  a  month 
later  to  Wilhelm  von  Wolzogen :  *  My  Lotte  grows 
dearer  to  me  every  day;  I  can  say  that  I  am  just 
beginning  to  prize  my  life,  since  domestic  happiness 
beautifies  it  for  me.'  His  income,  indeed,  was  pitifully 
small,  but  his  courage  was  great,  his  fame  well 
grounded,  and  there  were  prospects  here  and  there. 
From  the  first  he  had  regarded  the  Jena  professorship 
only  as  a  makeshift.  To  bring  variety  into  his 
academic  routine  he  began,  in  the  summer  term  of 
1790,  to  lecture  upon  the  theory  of  tragedy,  developing 

247 


248         Dark  Days  Within  and  Without 

the  subject  from  his  own  brain  and  paying  little  atten- 
tion to  the  authorities.  In  the  autumn  these  lectures 
were  resumed,  and  soon  the  aesthetic  philosopher 
began  to  prevail  over  the  historian. 

And  now  came  his  great  calamity.  In  reading  the 
later  writings  of  Schiller,  whether  philosophical  or 
poetical,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  them  the  work  of  an 
invalid,  produced  in  the  intervals  of  physical  suffering 
such  as  would  utterly  have  broken  the  courage  of  a  less 
resolute  man.  But  so  it  was.  Ths^  early  winter  of 
1 791  brought  withJitajdisastrous  illness  which^hattered 
hij_Ji^2^'  doomed  him  for  the  rest  of  his  daysjo  an 
i\y  incessant-battle  with  disease  and  finally  carne4~4lim 
awayjgrematurely  atth^,ag£jo£.  forty-five . 

AmongThe  acquaintances  that  he  had  made  through 
his  connection  with  the  Lengefeld  family  was  a  little 
group  of  people  in  Erfurt.  There  were  Karoline  von 
Dacheroden  and  her  lover,  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt, 
who  was  destined  to  become  Schiller's  intimate  friend 
and  also  his  faithful  comrade  in  the  field  of  aesthetic 
philosophizing.  Then  there  was  the  influential  Baron 
Karl  Theodor  von  Dalberg,  a  brother  of  the  Mannheim 
intendant.  This  elder  Dalberg,  who  some  years  later 
became  dubiously  prominent  in  connection  with  Napo- 
leon's Confederation  of  the  Rhine,  was  now  residing 
at  Erfurt  as  Coadjutor  to  the  Elector  of  Mainz  and  ex- 
pecting to  become  Elector  himself  on  the  death  of  his 
superior.  He  was  an  energetic,  good-natured  man, 
not  free  from  ostentatious  fussiness,  and  he  enjoyed  the 
role  of  Maecenas.  In  Schiller  and  Lotte  he  took  a 
deep  interest,  promising  to  do  something  handsome  for 
them  when  he  should  come  to  power  at  Mainz.     While 


Dangerous  Illness  249 

spending  his  vacation  with  these  Erfurt  friends,  at  the 
close  of  the  year  1790,  Schiller  took  a  cold  which 
brought  on  an  attack  of  pneumonia.  An  Erfurt  doctor 
treated  the  case  lightly  and  unskillfully  and  sent  him 
back  half  cured  to  Jena,  where  he  resumed  his  lectures. 
Now  came  a  second  and  sharper  attack,  with  hemor- 
rhage and  other  alarming  symptoms.  The  doctors 
operated  upon  him  as  best  they  knew,  with  leeches 
and  phlebotomy  and  purgatives  and  vomitives,  and 
came  very  near  killing  him.  For  days  he  lay  at  the 
point  of  death,  a  few  faithful  students  sharing  the  young 
wife's  anxious  vigil  at  his  bedside.  His  convalescence 
was  slow  and  in  the  end  imperfect,  leaving  him  with 
wasted  strength,  a  pain  in  the  right  lung  and  a  serious 
difficulty  in  breathing.  Of  course  it  was  all  up  with 
his  lecturing ;  but  he  easily  obtained  a  release  for  the 
summer  term  from  the  sympathetic  Duke  of  Weimar. 
In  March  he  was  well  enough  to  take  up  the  reading 
of  Kant's  then  recently  published  •  Critique  of  the 
Judgment ',  and  a  little  later  to  try  his  hand  at  trans- 
lating from  the  ^neid  in  stanzas  and  to  write  a 
rejoinder  to  the  *  anticritique  '  of  the  aggrieved  Burger. 
This  unfortunate  feud  with  Burger  grew  out  of  a 
magisterial  review  published  by  Schiller  in  1791  ;  a  re- 
view which,  while  dignified  in  tone  and  purporting  to 
speak  solely  in  the  interest  of  the  lyric  art,  amounted 
to  a  scathing  condemnation  of  Burger's  character. 
After  expatiating  upon  the  high  vocation  of  the  poet, 
the  necessity  of  his  thinking  and  feeling  nobly,  and  the 
importance  of  his  giving  only  his  idealized  self,  the 
anonymous  critic  proceeded  to  comment  upon  Burger's 
frequent  lapses  from  good  taste,  his  crudities,  indecen- 


250        Dark  Days  Within  and  Without 

cies  and  vulgar  ding-dongs,  and  to  refer  these  things 
with  remorseless  directness  to  personal  defects.  The 
criticism  was  just  and  had  all  the  other  merits  save 
discretion  and  urbanity.  Goethe  was  pleased  with  it 
before  he  knew  who  wrote  it,^  and  eleven  years  later 
Schiller  saw  nothing  in  it  to  change.  In  writing  it,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  he  was  only  breaking  the  rod  over  his 
own  early  self;  for  in  his  Stuttgart  *  Anthology  *  he 
had  committed  nearly  every  sin  for  which  now,  from 
the  serene  heights  of  a  better  artistic  insight,  he  casti- 
gated his  victim.  To  poor  Burger,  whose  life  was  just 
then  bitter  enough  at  the  best,  the  review  was  a  ter- 
rible blow.  He  at  once  published  a  reply,  which  is 
also  very  good  reading  in  its  way,  but  might  have 
been  made  much  more  spicy  had  he  known  the  name 
of  his  adversary.  Schiller's  final  rejoinder  added 
nothing  of  importance  to  the  discussion. ^ 

This  short  digression  leads  naturally  to  another. 
While  still  at  Weimar  Schiller  received  a  visit  from 
Burger,  and  the  two  agreed  to  vie  with  each  other  in 
a  translation  from  Vergil.  Schiller  chose  for  his  ex- 
periment the  eight-line  stanza  which  he  was  proposing 
to  use  in  an  epic  upon  Frederick  the  Great.  This 
'  Fredericiad  '  was  much  on  his  mind  in  the  spring  of 
1789.  His  plan  was  to  center  his  story  about  some 
ominous  juncture  in  Frederick's  career  (say  the  battle 
of  Kollin),  and  write  a  poem  which  should  exhibit  in 
lightly-flowing  stanzas  the  '  finest  flower  '  of  eighteenth- 


*  So,  at  least,  Schiller  states  in  a  letter  of  March  3,  1791,  toKOmer. 
'The  original  review,   together  with  Burger's  reply  and  Schiller's 
rejoinder,  are  printed  in  Sammtliche  Schriften,  VI,  314  ff. 


Interest  in  Epic  Poetry  351 

century  civilization.^  Albeit  intensely  modern  it  was 
to  have  the  indispensable  epic  '  machinery  '.  Nothing 
came  of  the  project,  but  a  year  later  he  was  still  rumi- 
nating upon  it  and  declared  that  he  should  not  be  truly 
happy  until  he  was  again  making  verses. 

Instead  of  attempting  an  original  epic,  however,  he 
now  began  to  translate  from  the  ^neid,  and  this  light 
and  congenial  labor  continued  to  occupy  him  for  a 
year  or  more  after  the  break-down  of  his  health.  He 
finally  completed  two  books,  the  second  and  fourth. 
The  translation  is  sonorous  and  otherwise  readable, 
but  it  is  not  Vergil  and  does  not  produce  the  effect  of 
Vergil.  The  breaking  up  of  the  matter  into  stanzas, 
each  having  a  unity  of  its  own,  led  to  additions,  omis- 
sions and  perversions, — there  are  2104  lines  in  the 
translation  to  1509  in  the  original, — and  substituted 
an  interrupted  romantic  cadence  for  the  stately  con- 
tinuous roll  of  the  hexameter. 

The  opening  lines  of  the  second  book  will  serve  as 
well  as  any  others  to  illustrate  Schiller's  method  as  a 
translator  : 

Conticuere  omnes,  intentique  ora  tenebant. 
Inde  toro  pater  Aeneas  sic  orsus  ab  alto : 
« Infandum,  regina,  jubes  renovare  dolorem, 
Trojanas  ut  opes  et  lamentabile  regnum 
Eruerint  Danai;  quaeque  ipse  miserrima  vidi 
Et  quorum  pars  magna  fui.' 

Schiller's  version  runs  thus: 

Der  ganze  Saal  war  Ohr,  jedweder  Mund  verschlossen, 
Und  Fiirst  Aeneas,  hingegossen 

*  The  plan  is  very  fully  discussed  in  a  letter  of  March  lo,  1789,  to 
KOrner. 


252        Dark  Days  Within  and  Without 

Auf  hohem  Polstersitz,  begann  : 

Dein  Wille,  Konigin,  macht  Wunden  wieder  bluten, 

Die  keine  Sprache  schildern  kann  : 

Wie  Trojas  Stadt  verging  in  Feuerfluten, 

Den  Jammer  willst  du  wissen,  die  Gefahr, 

Wovon  ich  Zeuge,  ach,  und  meistens  Opfer  war. 

As  for  the  *  Fredericiad  ' ,  it  never  got  beyond  the 
status  of  a  plan.  By  November,  1791,  Schiller  had 
concluded  that  Gustav  Adolf  would  be  a  better  subject 
for  an  epic, — he  could  get  up  no  enthusiasm  for  Unser 
Fritz  and  shrank  from  the  *  gigantic  labor  of  idealizing 
him '.  Soon  after  this  he  seems  to  have  dropped 
altogether  the  idea  of  writing  an  epic. 

In  the  spring  of  179 1,  when  he  had  grown  strong 
enough  to  think  of  attacking  the  second  installment 
of  the  'Thirty  Years*  War*,  Schiller  took  up  his 
abode  in  Rudolstadt;  and  there,  in  May,  he  was 
prostrated  by  a  second  illness  which  was  worse  than 
the  first.  His  life  was  despaired  of,  he  bade  his  friends 
farewell  and  the  report  went  out  from  Jena  that  he  was 
dead.  After  the  crisis  was  past  came  weary  weeks  of 
lassitude  and  pain,  with  no  possibility  of  writing  or 
reading.  In  July  he  took  the  waters  at  Karlsbad,  with 
some  slight  benefit.  By  autumn  he  was  well  enough 
to  do  the  promised  continuation  of  his  history  and  to 
lay  plans  with  Goschen  for  a  New  Thalia  to  begin  with 
the  next  year.  But  he  was  now  in  desperate  straits  for 
money.  His  illness  had  been  very  costly  and  the 
cessation  of  work  had  brought  a  cessation  of  income. 
He  was  in  debt  to  various  friends,  and  the  Duke  of 
Weimar  was  too  poor  to  help  him.  Saddest  of  all,  his 
beloved  wife*s  health  was  broken  with  anxiety  and 


Help  from  Denmark  255 

watching.  *  It  is  a  joy  to  me  ',  he  wrote  to  Korner  in 
October,  *  even  when  I  am  busy,  to  think  that  she  is 
near  me.  Her  dear  life  and  influence  round  about  me, 
the  childlike  purity  of  her  soul  and  the  warmth  of  her 
love,  give  me  a  repose  and  serenity  that  would  other- 
wise be  impossible  in  my  hypochondriac  condition. 
If  we  were  only  well  we  should  need  nothing  else  to 
live  like  the  gods.  * 

It  was  a  dark  juncture,  darker  far  than  that  of  1784, 
and  now  as  then  help  came  unexpectedly  from  afar. 
It  came  this  time  from  Denmark. 

The  Danish  author  Baggesen  had  visited  Jena  the 
previous  year  and  returned  home  a  fervid  admirer  of 
Schiller.  At  Copenhagen  he  had  imparted  his  en- 
thusiasm to  Count  Schimmelmann  and  the  Duke  of 
Holstein-Augustenburg,  who,  with  their  wives,  pro- 
ceeded to  found  a  sort  of  Schiller-sect.  Full  of  the 
time's  generous  ardor  for  high  and  humane  ideas,  they 
were  just  about  to  give  a  rustic  fete  in  honor  of  their 
great  German  poet,  when  the  news  of  his  death  arrived. 
They  met  with  heavy  hearts  and  sang  the  *  Song  to 
Joy  *,  with  an  added  stanza  by  Baggesen,  wherein  they 
pledged  themselves  to  *  be  faithful  to  Schiller's  spirit 
until  they  should  meet  above  '.  When  they  learned  a 
little  later  that  the  author  of  the  *  Song  '  was  alive,  I 
after  all,  and  very  much  in  need  of  money,  the  two  r^^t 
noblemen  immediately  wrote  him  a  joint  letter,  offering 
him,  in  language  of  admirable  delicacy,  a  gift  of  a 
thousand  thalers  a  year  for  three  years,  with  no  condi- 
tions whatever.  He  was  simply  to  give  himself  needed 
rest  and  follow  the  bent  of  his  mind,  free  from  all 
anxiety.     Should  he  choose  to  come  to  Copenhagen 


\ 


254        Dark  Days  Within  and  Without 

they  assured  him  that  he  would  find  loyal  friends  and 
admirers,  and  a  position  in  the  government  service  if 
he  desired  it. 

This  timely  windfall  *  from  the  clouds  '  put  an  end 
to  the  misery  of  distress  about  money.  For  the  first 
time  in  his  life  Schiller  found  himself  free  to  consult 
inclination  in  the  forming  of  his  plans  and  the  disposi- 
tion of  his  time.  Without  hesitation  he  gratefully 
accepted  the  gift  and  resolved  now  at  last  to  take  up 
the  study  of  Kant  and  fathom  him,  though  it  should 
require  three  years.  A  strange  resolution,  it  would 
seem,  for  a  sick  poet!  Many  have  judged  it  unwise 
and  have  deprecated  that  long  immersion  in  Kantian 
metaphysic.  But  Schiller  was  the  best  judge  of  his 
own  needs,  and  how  he  felt  about  the  matter  appears 
very  clearly  from  a  letter  that  he  wrote  to  Korner  a 
few  months  later: 

I  am  full  of  eagerness  for  some  poetic  task  and  particularly 
my  pen  is  itching  to  be  at  ♦  Wallenstein.'  Really  it  is  only  in 
art  itself  that  I  feel  my  strength.  In  theorizing  I  have  to  plague 
myself  all  the  while  about  principles.  There  I  am  only  a  dilet- 
tante. But  it  is  precisely  for  the  sake  of  artistic  creation  that  I 
wish  to  philosophize.  Criticism  must  repair  the  damage  it  has 
done  me.  And  it  has  done  me  great  damage  indeed  ;  for  I  miss 
in  myself  these  many  years  that  boldness,  that  living  fire,  that 
was  mine  before  I  knew  a  rule.  Now  I  see  myself  in  the  act  of 
creating  and  fashioning  ;  I  observe  the  play  of  inspiration,  and 
my  imagination  works  less  freely,  since  it  is  conscious  of  being 
watched.  But  if  I  once  reach  the  point  where  artistic  procedure 
becomes  natural,  like  education  for  the  well-nurtured  man,  then 
my  fancy  will  get  back  its  old  freedom,  and  know  no  bounds  but 
those  of  its  own  making. 

And   so   it  was  destined  to  be.     His   philosophic 


Visit  to  Suabia  255 

studies,  pursued  with  tireless  zeal  for  a  period  of  three 
or  four  years,  gave  him  the  self-assurance  that  he  hoped 
for.  They  created  for  him  at  least,  if  not  for  all  men 
everywhere,  a  poetical  modus  vivendi  between  natural 
impulse  and  artistic  rule.  '  Nature  '  learned  to  wear 
the  fetters  of  art  without  feeling  them  as  fetters.  At 
last  he  grew  weary  of  theorizing ;  but  his  later  plays, 
produced  in  rapidjuccession^each  unlike  the  other  and 
all  characterized  by  a  remarkable  imaginative  breadth 
and  freedom,  bear  witness  to  the  quantity  of  artistic 
energy  stored  up  during  this  period  of  artistic  self- 
repression. 

A  few  words  of  biography  will  suffice  for  the  goings 
and  comings  of  this  Kantian  period,  which  was  for 
Schiller  a  period  of  quiet  study,  eager  discussion  and 
laborious  authorship.  At  first  he  continued  to  reside 
in  Jena.  Early  in  1792  he  started  the  New  Thalia, 
and  this  he  used  for  the  publication  of  his  earlier 
aesthetic  lucubrations.  With  the  perfunctory  conclu- 
sion of  the  •  Thirty  Years*  War',  in  September,  his 
work  as  a  historian  virtually  came  to  an  end.  He  now 
began  to  lecture  again,  but  gave  only  an  aesthetic 
privatissimum  in  his  own  room.  He  went  out  of  the 
house  hardly  five  times  during  the  whole  winter,  and 
when  spring  came  his  health  was  again  very  precarious. 
He  now  determined  to  try  the  effect  upon  body  and 
soul  of  the  milder  climate  of  his  native  Suabia.  He 
set  out  in  August  and  took  the  precaution  to  halt  in 
Heilbronn,  not  knowing  what  brutality  the  Duke  of 
Wurttemberg  might  still  be  capable  of.  On  receiving 
the  blessed  assurance  that  his  Highness  would  •  ignore  ' 
him,  he  continued  on  his  way  to  Ludwigsburg,  where 


* 


256        Dark  Days  Within  and  Without 

a  son  was  born  to  him  in  September.  He  remained  in 
Ludwigsburg  during  the  winter  in  pleasant  intercourse 
with  his  family  and  friends.  In  October  Karl  Eugen 
went  to  his  reward.  *  The  death  of  the  old  Herod  ', 
Schiller  wrote  to  Korner,  *  does  not  concern  me  or  my 
family,  except  that  all  who  have  to  do  directly,  like 
my  father,  with  the  head  of  the  state,  are  glad  that 
they  now  have  a  man  before  them. '  ^ 

One  of  the  first  important  official  acts  of  the  new 
duke  was  to  abolish  the  Karlschule;  but  this  did  not 
happen  until  after  Schiller  had  visited  the  scene  of  his 
former  woes,  in  the  role  of  distinguished  son,  and  had 
received  the  enthusiastic  plaudits  of  the  four  hundred 
students.  It  was  here  in  Ludwigsburg  that^  his  ripest 
philosophic  work,  the  '  Letters  upon  ^Esthetic  Educa- 
tion ',  ^amgJi]lQ..being.  In  the  spring  he  spent  some 
weeks  in  Stuttgart,  where  Dannecker  began  to  model 
the  famous  bust  that  now  adorns  the  Weimar  library. 
In  Stuttgart  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  enterpris- 
ing publisher  Cotta,  who  wished  him  to  undertake  the 
editorship  of  a  great  political  journal.  But  another 
plan  lay  nearer  to  Schiller's  heart,  and  before  he  left 
Suabia  he  had  arranged  with  Cotta  to  edit  a  high-ftlass 

1  On  the  other  hand,  Wilhelm  von  Hoven,  who  was  with  Schiller  at 
the  time,  represents  him  as  deeply  touched  by  the  death  of  Duke  Karl 
and  as  expressing  himself  thus  :  **  Da  ruht  er  also,  dieser  rastlos  thatig 
gewesene  Mann.  Er  hatte  grosze  Fehler  als  Regent,  grOszere  als 
Mensch,  aber  die  ersteren  wurden  von  seinen  groszen  Eigenschaften  weit 
Uberwogen,  und  das  Andenken  an  die  letzteren  musz  mit  dem  Toten 
begraben  werden  ;  darum  sage  ich  dir,  wenn  du,  da  er  nun  dort  liegt, 
jetzt  noch  nachteilig  von  ihm  sprechen  hOrst,  traue  diesem  Menschen 
nicht :  er  ist  kein  guter,  wenigstens  kein  edler  Mensch."  Cf.  Kuno 
Fischer,  "Schiller-Schriften ",  I,  153,  and  Karoline  von  Wolzogen, 
"  Schillers  Leben  ",  Achter  Abschnitt. 


Plans  for  the  Future  257 

literary  magazine_tp  be  known  as  Die  Horen.  In  May, 
i794rHe~returned  to  Jena,  glad  to  have  escaped  at  last 
from  his  dear,  distracting  fatherland  and  to  be  once 
more  at  home.  His  health  had  not  improved,  and  he 
had  now  become  reconciled  in  a  measure  to  the  doom 
of  the  invalid.  But  although  he  knew  that  the  death- 
mark  was  upon  him,  the  knowledge  only  spurred  him 
to  more  eager  activity.^  He  felt  that  he  had  a  great 
work  to  do  and  that  the  time  might  be  short.  By  this 
time  his  acquaintance  with  Humboldt  had  ripened  into 
a  warm  friendship.  *  What  a  life  it  will  be  ',  he  wrote 
to  Korner,  *  when  you  come  here  and  complete  the 
triad.  Humboldt  is  for  me  an  infinitely  agreeable  and 
at  the  same  time  useful  acquaintance ;  for  in  conversa- 
tion with  him  all  my  ideas  move  happily  and  move 
quickly.  There  is  in  his  character  a  totality  that  is 
rarely  seen  and  that,  except  in  him,  I  have  found  only 
in  you. ' 

After  his  return  to  Jena  he  lectured  no  more,  but 
threw  all  his  energy  into  the  new  journal.  He  pre- 
pared an  alluring  prospectus  andThvited  the  coopera- 
tion of  all  the  best  writers  in  Germany.  Among  these 
was  5Q£jtiiej_jdio__sent  a  favorable  reply.  And  thus  rsV_ 
began  a  correspondence  which  presently  led^_a&-alljhe  "^ 
world  knows,  to  an  ever  memorable  friendship.  The 
activities  centering  in  the  Horen  ushered  in  a  new 
literary^poch,  the  epoch  of  Germany's  bnet  leadership 
in  modern  literature. 

Thus  the  period  of  his  Kantian  studies,  a  time  of; 

^  A  letter  of  May  24,  1791,  contains  the  brave  words  :  *'  Ich  habe  mehr 
als  einmal  dem  Tod  ins  Gesicht  gesehen,  und  mein  Mut  ist  dadurch 
gestarkt  worden. " 


2  58        Dark  Days  Within  and  Withcxit 

tremendous  political  excitement  in  Europe,  was  for 
Schiller  a  quiet  period  of  intense  thinking  and  of  eager 
debate  with  like-minded  friends,  upon  the  abstruse 
questions  of  aesthetic  theory.  The  turmoil  of  the  revo- 
lution affected  him  hardly  at  all.  There  was  nothing 
o(thejdemocratabout  him.  Withall  his  devotionto 
liberty.^d  with  aTThis  poetic  fondness  for  republican- 
ism, he  remaingiiat  heart  a  devoted  monarchist.     All 


his  life,  nearly,  he  had  lived  with  aristocrats,  and  he 
himself  had  the  temper  of  an  aristocrat.  There  is  no 
evidence  in  his  letters  that  he  ever  really  sympathized 
with  the  French  people^ven  during  the  early  days  of 
the  revolution,  in  their  practical  program  of  *  liberty, 
equality  and  fraternity'.  His  notionofJibgrty^^vas  at 
no  time  a  definite  political  concept,  but  always  a  rain- 
bow in  jthfijQlouds  ,  • — somglJtiing  to  rave  and  philosophize 
over.  Of  human  brotherhood  he  had  sung^most 
affectingly  in  the  'Song  to  Joy',  but  it  was  only  a 
poetic  kiss  that  he  had  ready  for  all  mankind.  He 
would  have  been  amazed  if  any  plebeian  stranger  had 
proposed  to  take  him  at  his  word.  As  for  equality, 
there  is  no  evidence  that  it  entered  as  a  factor  or  an 
ideal  into  his  scheme  of  man's  better  time  to  come. 

It  was  thus  perfectly  natural,  when  the  proceedings 
were  instituted  against  the  ill-fated  Louis  the  Sixteenth, 
that  Schiller  should  take  the  part  of  the  accused.  The' 
fierce  determination  of  the  French  democracy  to  exact 
a  reckoning  from  their  sovereign,  not  so  much  for  what 
he  had  done  as  for  ages  of  accumulated  wrong,  appeared 
to  him  the  very  madness  of  injustice.  In  December, 
1792,  he  planned  to  write  a  book  or  a  pamphlet  in 
defence  of  the  king,  and  have  it  translated  into  French 


Schiller  and  the  Revolution  259 

for  the  purpose  of  influencing  public  opinion  in  Paris.  ^ 
He  seems  actually  to  have  begun  the  work,  but  the  fate 
of  the  unlucky  Bourbon  was  swifter  than  the  pen  of  his 
German  defender.  Schiller's  horror  of  the  regicide 
knew  no  bounds.  '  These  two  weeks  past ',  he  wrote 
on  February  8,  1793,  'I  can  read  no  more  French 
papers,  so  disgusted  am  I  with  these  wretched  execu- 
tioners.' The  ensuing  events  of  the  Terror  intensified 
this  feeling.  In  speaking  of  the  year  1793,  Karoline 
von  Wolzogen  has  this  to  say  of  her  brother-in-law : 

He  regarded  the  French  Revolution  as  the  effect  of  passion 
and  not  as  a  work  of  wisdom,  which  alone  could  produce  true 
freedom.  He  admitted,  indeed,  that  many  ideas  which  had  pre- 
viously been  found  only  in  books  and  in  the  heads  of  enlightened 
men,  were  now  matters  of  public  discussion  ;  but,  he  said,  the 
real  principles  which  must  underlie  a  truly  happy  civil  constitu- 
tion are  not  yet  so  common  among  men  ;  they  are  found  (point- 
ing to  a  copy  of  Kant's  '  Critique  '  that  lay  on  the  table)  nowhere 
else  but  here.  The  French  Republic  will  cease  as  quickly  as  it 
has  come  into  being.  The  republican  constitution  will  give  rise 
to  a  state  of  anarchy,  and  sooner  or  later  a  capable  strong  man 
will  appear  from  some  quarter  and  make  himself  master  not 
only  of  France  but  also,  perhaps,  of  a  large  part  of  Europe." 

If  this  remarkable  prediction  of  Napoleon  is  rightly 
reported  and  rightly  dated  by  the  Baroness  von 
Wolzogen,  one  can  hardly  suppose  that  Schiller  was 
very  much  elated  when  he  read  in  a  paper,  towards  the 
close  of  the  year  1792,  that  he  had  been  made  an 
honorary  citizen  of  the  French  Republic.  Under  a  law 
passed  in  August  of  that  year, — fan  premier  de  la 
liberie^ — the  name  and  rights  of  a  French  citizen  were 

*  Letter  of  December  21,  to  KOrner. 
«  "  Schillers  Leben",  Achter  Abschnitt. 


26o        Dark  Days  Within  and  Without 

bestowed  upon  a  number  of  foreigners  who  had  *  con- 
secrated their  arms  and  their  vigils  to  defending  the 
cause  of  the  people  against  the  despotism  of  kings  '. 
A  motley  band  of  heroes  had  been  selected  for  this 
honor, — the  names  of  Washington  and  Wilberforce  and 
Kosciusko  being  put  to  pickle  in  the  same  brine  with 
those  of  Pestalozzi,  J.  H.  Campe,  Klopstock  and  Ana- 
charsis  Cloots, — and  the  bill  was  about  to  pass  when  a 
deputy  arose, — he  must  have  been  an  Alsatian, — and 
proposed  to  add  the  name  of  M.  Gille,  publiciste  alle- 
mand.  The  amendment  was  accepted,  and  a  few 
weeks  later  Minister  Roland  transmitted  to  *  M.  Gille  ' 
an  official  diploma  of  French  citizenship.  It  took  the 
postal  authorities  of  Germany  some  six  years  to  deliver 
the  letter,  and  when  at  last  they  succeeded,  its  recipi- 
ent was  less  than  ever  in  a  mood  to  be  overjoyed  at 
the  well-meant  distinction  that  had  been  conferred  upon 
him  by  the  French  republicans. 

The  progress  of  the  Revolution  appeared  to  Schiller 
to  endanger  the  higher  interests  of  civilization.  He 
was  too  close  to  it  for  a  serenely  impartial  view.  Had 
it  been  an  occurrence  of  the  sixteenth  century,  he 
would  have  been  just  the  man  to  philosophize  over  it 
and  to  show  that  in  this  case,  again,  ''the  frenzy  of 
the  nations  was  the  statesmanship  of  fate".  As  it 
was,  the  unrest  of  the  people,  and  their  increasing 
absorption  in  questions  of  mere  politics,  disgusted  him. 
He  felt  that  a  counteragent  was  needed.  And  so, 
declining  Cotta's  offer  anent  the  political  journal,  and 
thus  leaving  the  famous  Allgemeine  Zeitung  to  begin 
Its  career  a  few  years  later  under  other  hands,  he  chose 
instead  to  found  the  Horen^   which  was   to  exclude 


Genius  and  Vocation  261 

politics  altog^ltihLei^an^Jnd^ 

think  of  somethmg^-elsgL.  He  saw  that  the  times  were 
unpropitious  for  his  enterprise,  but  felt  that  it  was  for 
that  very  reason  the  more  urgently  needed.  In  an- 
nouncing the  Horen  to  the  public  in  1795  he  wrote: 

The  more  the  minds  of  men  are  excited,  shut  in  and  subjugated 
by  the  narrow  interests  of  the  present,  the  more  urgent  is  a  gen- 
eral and  higher  interest  in  that  which  is  purely  human  and 
superior  to  all  influences  of  the  time  ;  an  interest  which  shall 
set  men  free  again  and  unite  the  politically  divided  world  under 
the  banner  of  truth  and  beauty.  This  is  the  point  of  view  from 
which  the  authors  of  the  Horen  wish  it  to  be  regarded.  The 
journal  is  to  be  devoted  to  cheerful  and  passionless  entertainment, 
and  to  offer  the  mind  and  heart  of  its  readers,  now  angered  and 
depressed  by  the  events  of  the  day,  a  pleasant  diversion.  In  the 
midst  of  this  political  tumult  it  will  form  for  the  Muses  and 
Graces  a  little  intimate  circle,  from  which  everything  will  be 
banished  that  is  stamped  with  the  impure  spirit  of  partisanship. 

Many  a  modern  reader  will  be  inclined,  perhaps,  to 
smile  at  this  deliverance  and  to  see  in  it  a  fatuous  mis- 
judgment  of  the  relative  importance  of  things.  The 
French  Revolution  versus  a  spray  of  aesthetic  rose- 
water  !  But  we  must  not  be  too  hasty.  Posterity  has 
no  better  criterion  for  judging  great  men  than  the 
criterion  of  service.  And  service  is  a  question  of  voca- 
tion. As  the  matter  is  put  by  Goethe,  who  himself  a 
little  later  took  refuge  from  the  mis  ere  of  the  Napoleonic 
epoch  in  the  contemplative  poetry  of  the  Orient :  *  Man 
may  seek  his  higher  destiny  on  earth  or  in  heaven,  in 
the  present  or  in  the  future;  yet  for  that  reason  he 
remains  exposed  to  constant  wavering  within  and  to 
continual  disturbance  from  without,  until  he  once  for 
all  makes  up  his  mind  to  declare  that  that  is  right 


262        Dark  Days  Within  and  Without 

which  is  in  accordance  with  his  own  nature.  *  ^  It  was 
not  in  Schiller  to  be  a  political  journalist  or  a  pam- 
phleteer. In  that  field  he  would  have  wasted  his 
splendid  energy.  He  knew  what  he  could  do  best; 
and  it  was  well  for  his  country  and  for  the  world  that 
he  chose  to  withdraw  from  the  turmoil  of  the  Revo- 
lution and  prepare  himself  for  *  Wallenstein '  and 
*  William  Teir. 

»  ''Dichtung  und  Wahrheit",  Elites  Buch. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
2lc0tbet(c  •Qdrlttnga 

Es  ist  gewisz  von  keinem  Sterblichen  kein  groszeres  Wort 
gesprochen  als  dieses  Kantische,  was  zugleich  der  Inhalt  seiner 
ganzen  Philosophie  ist :  Bestimme  dich  aus  dir  selbst. 

Letter  of  lygj. 

From  a  quotation  in  the  preceding  chapter  we  have 
seen  what  Schiller  hoped  for  when  he  resolved  to 
grapple  with  the  Kantian  philosophy.  He  was  in  pur- 
suit of  that  which  would  help  him  as  a  poet.  He  felt 
that  a  little  philosophy  had  done  him  harm  by  quench- 
ing his  inner  fire  and  destroying  his  artistic  spontaneity. 
The  rules  were  continually  coming  between  him  and 
his  creative  impulses.  His  hope  was  that  more  philos- 
ophy would  repair  the  damage  by  making  the  principles 
of  art  so  clear  and  so  familiar  that  they  would  become 
as  second  nature,  and  therefore  cease  to  be  felt  as  a 
clog  or  an  interference. 

This  expectation,  looking  at  the  matter  a  priori^ 
was  reasonable  enough.  Looking  at  it  retrospectively, 
Goethe  came  to  the  conclusion,  as  is  well  known,  that 
Schiller's  philosophic  bent  had  injured  his  poetry  by 
teaching  him  to  *  regard  the  idea  as  higher  than  all 
nature*.  Goethe  thought  it  'depressing  to  see  how- 
such  an  extraordinarily  gifted  man  had  tormented  him- 
self with  philosophic  modes  of  thought  that  could  be 

263 


2  64  Aesthetic  Writings 

of  no  use  to  him'.^  But  this  does  not  tell  the  whole 
story,  notwithstanding  the  greatness  of  the  authority. 
To  assert  that  all  philosophy  is  always  harmful  to  a 
poet  would  be  to  assert  the  most  patent  nonsense. 
Goethe  himself  at  one  time  found  help  and  inspiration 
in  Spinoza,  the  dryest  and  most  abstract  of  thinkers;* 
and  after  all,  *  nature  '  comes  off  about  as  well  in 
*  Wallenstein  *  as  in  *  Faust '.  It  is  a  question  of  per- 
sonal endowment,  of  what  the  mind  can  assimilate  and 
turn  to  account.  There  are  many  kinds  of  the  poetic 
temper,  the  intellectual  element  blending  variously 
with  the  emotional,  the  instinctive  and  the  visional. 
For  Schiller  poetry  was  not  'somnambulism*,  but  a 
very  deliberate  process ;  wherefore  it  was  quite  natural 
for  him  to  expect  that  a  season  of  philosophic  study 
would  be  good  for  him.  So  he  set  out  to  fathom  the 
laws  of  beauty;  assuming,  of  course,  that  there  must 
be  such  laws  and  that  they  must  be,  in  some  sense  or 
other,  laws  of  human  nature. 

To  follow  him  critically  in  all  the  by-ways  of  his 
theorizing  would  require  a  treatise;  and  the  treatise 
would  be  dull  reading,  except,  peradventure,  to  such 
as  might  be  specially  interested  in  the  history  of 
aesthetic  discussion.  In  the  end,  too,  it  would  shed 
but  little  light  upon  Schiller's  later  plays,  which  were 
in  no  sense  the  offspring  of  theory  and  were  influenced 
only  in  a  very  general  way  by  their  author's  previous 
philosophical  studies.  To  understand  the  poet's 
development  it  is  nowise  necessary  to  lose  one's  self 

*  Eckermanns  "Gesprache",  under  date  of  November  14,  1823. 
^  He  also  admitted  that  he  himself  had  profited  from  the  study  of 
Kant ;  cf.  Eckermann,  under  date  of  April  xi,  1827. 


Early  Philosophizing  265 

with  him  in  the  Serbonian  bog  of  metaphysic.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  will  be  useful  to  know  what  the  problems 
were  that  chiefly  interested  him,  and  to  see  how  he 
attacked  them  and  what  conclusions  he  arrived  at. 
With  the  soundness  of  his  reasoning  and  the  final  value 
of  his  contributions  to  the  literature  of  aesthetics  we 
need  hardly  concern  ourselves  at  all ;  since  the  scientific 
questions  involved  are  differently  stated  and  differently 
approached  at  the  present  time.^ 

The  pre-Kantian  stage  of  Schiller's  sesthetic  philoso- 
phy is  of  quite  minor  importance.  He  obtained  his 
original  stock  of  ideas  at  the  Stuttgart  academy  from 
Ferguson's  'Institutes',  as  translated  by  Garve.  In 
Ferguson,  who  rested  strongly  upon  Shaftesbury,  no 
line  was  drawn  between  the  moral  and  the  aesthetic 
domain.  It  was  taught  that  all  truth  is  beauty  and 
that  •  the  most  natural  beauty  in  the  world  is  honesty 
and  moral  truth  ' .  Perfection  was  made  to  depend  on 
harmony  and  proportion ;  and  moral  beauty  upon  the 
harmony  of  the  individual  soul  with  the  general  system 
of  things.  Wrong  action  was  regarded  as  discord, 
imperfection.  Virtue,  being  a  disposition  toward 
the  general  harmony,  necessarily  meant  happiness. 
Thoughts  of  this  kind,  mixed  up  with  vague  ideas  of  a 
pre-established  harmony,  constituted  the  staple  of 
Schiller's  early  philosophizing.  The  identity  of  the 
good,  the  true  and  the  beautiful,  was  for  him  the 
highest  of  all  generalizations,  though  more  a  matter  of 
pious  emotion  than  of  close  thinking. 

1  Schiller's  aesthetic  writings,  and  especially  his  relation  to  Kant,  have 
been  much  discussed  in  recent  years.  For  a  list  of  the  more  important 
works  consult  the  Appendix. 


266  Aesthetic  Writings 

Nor  do  we  observe  any  noteworthy  change  of  atti- 
tude in  the  minor  philosophic  writings,  such  as  the 
letters  of  Julius  and  Raphael,  and  the  second  book  of 
*The  Ghostseer', — which  he  published  prior  to  his 
acquaintance  with  Kant.  In  these  it  is  always  the 
moralist  that  speaks,  and  the  great  question  is  the 
bearing  of  skepticism  on  individual  happiness.  But  by 
the  end  of  his  first  year  in  Weimar  the  moralist  had 
begun  to  retreat  before  the  aesthetic  philosopher.  For 
the  author  of  *  The  Gods  of  Greece  '  and  *  The  Art- 
ists ',  it  is  evident  that  the  beautiful  has  become  the 
corner-stone  of  the  temple.  He  saw  before  him  all 
at  once  a  new  region  that  invited  exploration.  If  art 
had  played  such  a  commanding  role  in  the  history 
of  the  world,  it  was  evidently  of  the  greatest  import- 
ance to  understand  it.  It  was  this  feeling  for  the 
dignity  of  art,  as  the  greatest  of  factors  in  human  per- 
fectibility, that  led  him  to  devote  the  leisure  afforded 
by  his  Danish  pension  to  a  thorough  study  of  Kantian 
aesthetics. 

He  began  quite  independently,  as  we  have  seen, 
with  a  course  of  lectures  upon  the  theory  of  tragedy. 
The  lectures  were  never  published,  but  the  cream  of 
them  is  probably  contained  in  two  essays,  *  On  the 
Rational  Basis  of  Pleasure  in  Tragic  Themes  ',  and 
*  On  the  Tragic  Art ',  which  were  contributed  to  the 
New  Thalia  in  1792.  In  the  former  Schiller  first 
combats  the  idea  that  art  has  any  higher  aim  than  the 
giving  of  pleasure.  Its  aim,  he  argues,  is  not  morality 
but  *  free  pleasure  ' ,  the  *  free  '  meaning  subject  to  no 
law  but  its  own.  If  morality  is  made  its  final  aim,  it 
ceases  to  be  *  free  '.     Then  the  essay  goes  on  to  discuss 


The  Essays  on  Tragedy  267 

the  crux  of  our  feeling  pleasure  in  painful  representa- 
tions. All  pleasure,  we  read,  comes  from  the  percep- 
tion of  Zweckmdszigkeity  that  is,  the  quality  of  being 
adapted  to  the  furtherance  of  an  end.  Since  man  is 
meant  to  be  happy  and  naturally  seeks  happiness, 
human  suffering  affects  us  primarily  as  a  *  maladapta- 
tion  ',  and  so  gives  us  pain.  But  in  this  very  pain  our 
reason  recognizes  a  higher  *  adaptation  ',  since  we  are 
incited  by  it  to  activity.  We  know  that  it  is  good  for 
us  and  for  society;  and  so  we  take  pleasure  in  our  own 
pain.  The  total  effect  of  tragedy  depends  upon  the 
proportion  in  which  this  higher  sense  of  adaptation  is 
present. 

The  important  thing  to  notice  in  this  argument  is 
that  aesthetic  judgments  are  made  to  depend  upon  con- 
cepts of  the  mind.  The  reason,  with  its  abstractions 
of  *  fitness  '  and  what  not,  is  regarded  as  the  prior  and 
the  dominating  factor.  In  the  second  of  the  two 
essays,  however,  we  find  a  distinct  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  emotional  excitement  may  give  pleasure  in 
and  of  itself.  Illustrations  are  brought  in, — such  as 
the  passion  for  gaming  and  for  dangerous  adventure, 
and  the  general  love  of  ghost  stories  and  tales  of 
crime, — which  go  to  show  that  Schiller  by  no  means 
overlooked  the  non-rational  element  in  the  pleasure 
afforded  by  tragedy.  Nevertheless  he  seems  to  have 
attached  very  little  importance  to  that  element,  for  he 
goes  on  to  observe  that  we  know  only  two  sources  of 
pleasure,  namely,  the  satisfaction  of  our  bent  for  hap- 
piness (Gliickseligkeitstrieb)^  and  the  fulfillment  of 
moral  laws.  As  the  pleasure  we  take  in  acted  or 
narrated  suffering  cannot  proceed  from  the  former,  it 


a68  Aesthetic  Writings 

must  spring  from  the  latter  and  do  its  work  by  gratify- 
ing the  'bent  for  activity'  {Thdtigkeitstrieb^,  which 
is  a  moral  bent. — After  a  long  tussle  with  such  hazy 
abstractions  the  essayist  attempts  a  working  definition 
and  practical  discussion  of  tragedy.  This  part  of  the 
essay  is  still  eminently  readable,  but  need  not  be 
analyzed  here.  Sufficient  to  say  that  Schiller  regards 
the  excitation  of  '  sympathy  '  as  the  sole  aim  of  tragedy. 
He  has  nothing  to  say  of  the  Aristotelian  *  fear  '  or 
<  katharsis  ' ;  in  fact  he  did  not  make  the  acquaintance 
of  Aristotle  until  1797.^ 

It  would  be  next  in  order  to  consider  the  lectures  of 
1792-93,  but  unluckily  they  are  known  only  from  the 
notes  of  a  student.^  As  published  in  1806  they  bear 
the  impress  of  Schiller's  mind,  but  are  too  brief  and 
summary  to  be  counted  among  his  works.  They  show 
that  by  1793  he  had  come  to  feel  at  home  in  the  field 
of  aesthetic  speculation.  He  had  read  Kant  and  Moritz 
and  Burke,  and  was  ready  with  his  criticisms.  In 
particular,  he  had  found  what  he  regarded  as  a  weak 
point  in  the  system  of  Kant,  who  had  not  only  made 
no  attempt  to  establish  an  objective  criterion  of  beauty, 
but  had  summarily  dismissed  the  whole  problem  as 
obviously  hopeless.  Schiller  felt  that,  if  this  were  so, 
there  was  no  firm  foundation  anywhere,  and  all  aesthetic 
judgments  were  reduced  to  a  matter  of  taste, — which 
was  of  course  a  very  unwelcome  conclusion.  In  the 
belief  that  he  had  found  the  missing  link  he  planned, 

'  An  oft-repeated  assertion  to  the  contrary,  which  goes  back  to  Karo- 
line  von  Wolzogen,  "Schillers  Leben",  Achter  Abschnitt,  is  contra- 
dicted by  a  letter  of  Schiller  to  Goethe,  written  May  5,  1797. 

*  They  are  reprinted  in  SUmmtliche  Schriften,  X,  41  flf. 


Kant^s  Aesthetics  269 

toward  the  end  of  1792,  a  treatise  to  be  known  as 
*  Kallias,  or  Concerning  Beauty  '.  It  was  to  take  the 
form  of  a  dialogue,  to  be  written  in  a  pleasing  style> 
with  a  plenty  of  illustration, — merits  to  which  Kant 
could  lay  no  claim, — and  to  review  the  whole  history 
of  aesthetic  theorizing. 

This  plan  was  finally  given  up,  but  a  series  of  rather 
abstruse  letters  to  Korner,  beginning  in  January,  I793> 
may  be  regarded  as  preparatory  studies  for  the  con- 
templated treatise.  Schiller's  idea  was,  evidently,  to 
blaze  a  private  trail  through  the  jungle  of  Kantian 
theory,  with  Korner 's  critical  assistance,  and  then  to 
return  and  convert  the  trail  into  an  agreeable  road  for 
the  general  reader.  In  the  end  he  chose  a  different 
form  than  that  of  the  Socratic  dialogue  for  the  literary 
presentation  of  his  doctrine,  but  what  he  wrote  subse- 
quently was  based  partly  at  least  upon  conclusions  that 
he  had  reached  through  his  correspondence  with 
Korner;  wherefore  it  will  be  well  to  look  a  little  more 
closely,  at  this  point,  into  his  quarrel  with  the  Konigs- 
berg  philosophy. 

As  is  well  known,  Kant  placed  the  aesthetic  faculty 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  'judgment',  which  he 
regarded  as  a  sort  of  connecting  link  between  the  pure 
reason  and  the  practical  reason,  that  is,  between  cog- 
nition and  volition.  A  judgment  is  teleologic,  accord- 
ing to  his  scheme,  if  it  implies  a  pre-existing  notion  to 
which  the  object  is  expected  to  conform ;  it  is  aesthetic 
when  pleasure  or  pain  is  produced  directly  by  the 
object  itself.  In  the  good  and  the  agreeable  we  have 
an  interest, — we  will  the  former  and  desire  the  latter. 
The  beautiful,  on  the  other  hand,  is  that  which  pleases 


2  70  Aesthetic  Writings 

without  appealing  to  any  interest  {interesseloses  Wohl- 
gef alien).  This  is  its  character  under  the  category  of 
quahty.  Under  that  of  quantity  it  is  a  universal 
pleasure;  under  that  of  relation,  a  form  of  adaptation 
{Zweckmdszigkeif),  with  no  end  present  to  the  mind. 
Finally,  under  the  fourth  category — modality — it  is 
*  necessary',  being  determined  not  by  any  objective 
criterion,  but  by  the  sensus  communis  of  mankind,  that 
is,  their  agreement  in  taste. 

For  Kant,  then,  the  whole  matter  of  aesthetics  is  a 
subjective  matter.  He  does  not  inquire  what  it  is  that 
makes  objects  beautiful,  but  how  it  is  that  we  'judge  ' 
them  to  be  beautiful.  While  his  predecessors  made 
the  impression  of  the  beautiful  to  depend  upon  objective 
attributes  of  form,  proportion,  harmony,  completeness 
and  the  like,  he  insisted  that  the  essence  of  beauty  was 
to  please  without  reference  to  any  such  intellectual 
concept  whatever.  His  terminology  was  not  very 
happy,  since  a  judgment  that  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  intellect  is  not  a  judgment  at  all,  but  a  feeling; 
nevertheless  his  system  brought  out  clearly, — and  this 
is  perhaps  his  most  important  merit  in  the  domain  of 
aesthetics, — the  necessity  of  distinguishing  more  sharply 
between  the  beautiful,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  good 
and  agreeable,  on  the  other.  But  in  expounding  his 
central  doctrine,  that  beauty  cannot  depend  upon  a 
mental  concept,  he  is  not  quite  consistent;  for  he 
recognizes  *  adaptation '  as  a  form  of  beauty,  and 
adaptation  is  a  concept  of  the  mind.  To  meet  this 
difficulty  he  makes  a  distinction  between  free  beauty 
{pulchritudo  vaga)  and  adherent  beauty  {pulchritudo 
adhcerens)y  the  latter  being  mixed  up  with  the  good  or 


Schiller's  Divergence  from  Kant       271 

the  desirable.  Even  a  generic  or  a  normative  concept 
was  for  him  fatal  to  the  idea  of  pure  beauty.  Thus 
pure  beauty  could  not  be  affirmed  of  a  horse,  because 
one  inevitably  has  in  his  mind  an  antecedent  notion  as 
to  how  a  horse  ought  to  look.  Again,  there  could  be 
no  such  thing  as  pure  beauty, — at  the  best  only 
adherent  beauty, — in  a  moral  action,  since  a  moral 
action  does  not  please  in  and  of  itself.  At  the  same 
time  Kant  held  that  the  highest  use  of  beauty  is  to 
symbolize  moral  truth,  and  in  illustrating  the  possi- 
bilities of  this  symbolism  he  indulged  in  some  rather 
fanciful  speculations. 

Now  we  can  easily  understand  that  Schiller,  not- 
withstanding all  his  admiration  of  Kant  and  his  prompt 
recognition  of  the  far-reaching  importance  of  Kant's 
doctrine,  could  not  be  perfectly  satisfied  with  a  philos- 
ophy which  decreed  that  an  arabesque  is  more  beauti- 
ful than  any  woman,  and  that  morality  cannot  be 
beautiful  at  all,  except  in  some  mystical  poetic  sense. 
Nor  could  he  be  content  with  Kant's  sensus  communis 
cBstheticuSy  which  seemed  to  leave  the  beautiful  finally 
a  matter  of  taste.  His  mental  attitude  is  clearly 
brought  to  view  in  a  letter  of  February  9,  1793,  to  the 
Prince  of  Augustenburg.  After  speaking  warmly  of 
Kant's  great  service  to  philosophy,  he  describes  thus 
the  problem  which  Kant  regarded  as  impossible  of 
solution  and  which  he  himself,  Schiller,  was  bold 
enough  to  attempt: 

When  I  consider  how  closely  our  feeling  for  the  beautiful  and 
the  great  is  connected  with  the  noblest  part  of  our  being,  it  is 
impossible  for  me  to  regard  this  feeling  as  a  mere  subjective 
play  of  the  emotional  faculty,  capable  of  none   but   empirical 


272  Aesthetic  Writings 

rules.  It  seems  to  me  that  beauty  too,  as  well  as  truth  and 
right,  must  rest  upon  eternal  foundations,  and  that  the  original 
laws  of  the  reason  must  also  be  the  laws  of  taste.  It  is  true  that 
the  circumstance  of  our  feeling  beauty  and  not  cognizing  it 
seems  to  cut  off  all  hope  of  our  finding  a  universal  law  for  it» 
because  every  judgment  emanating  from  this  source  is  a  judg- 
ment of  experience.  As  a  rule  people  accept  an  explanation  of 
beauty  only  because  it  harmonizes  in  particular  cases  with  the 
verdict  of  feeling  ;  whereas,  if  there  were  really  such  a  thing  as 
the  cognition  of  beauty  from  principles,  we  should  trust  the 
verdict  of  feeling  because  it  coincides  with  our  explanation  of 
the  beautiful.  Instead  of  testing  and  correcting  our  feelings  by 
means  of  principles,  we  test  aesthetic  principles  by  our  feelings. 

So  then  Schiller  attacked  his  problem  in  the  afore- 
mentioned letters  to  Korner  and  was  soon  able  to 
announce  his  solution:  Beauty  is  nothing  else  than 
freedom-in-the-appearance  {Freiheit  in  der  Erschei- 
nung). 

To  make  clear  the  steps  by  which  he  arrived  at  that 
formula  and  the  wealth  of  meaning  that  it  contained 
for  him  would  require  a  fuller  analysis  of  his  argument 
than  there  is  space  for  in  this  chapter.  Suffice  it  to 
say  that  he  now  fully  accepts  the  dogma  of  Kant  that 
beauty  cannot  depend  upon  a  mental  concept, — the 
feeling  of  pleasure  is  the  prior  fact.  At  the  same  time 
he  has  an  unshakable  conviction  that  beauty  must 
somehow  fall  under  the  laws  of  reason.  He  gets  rid 
of  the  crux  by  taking  the  aesthetic  faculty  away  from 
the  jurisdiction  of  Kant's  rather  mysterious  'judgment  *, 
and  turning  it  over  to  the  *  practical  reason  *.  His 
argument  is  that  the  practical  reason  demands  free- 
dom, just  as  the  *  pure  '  or  theoretic  reason  demands 
rationality.     Freedom  is  the  form  which  the  practical 


Theory  of  Beauty  273 

reason  instinctively  applies  upon  presentation  of  an 
object.  It  is  satisfied  when,  and  only  when,  the  object 
is  free,  autonomous,  self-determined.  He  then  pro- 
pounds his  theory  that  beauty  is  simply  an  analogon 
of  moral  freedom.  On  the  presentation  of  an  object 
the  practical  reason  (i,e.^  the  will)  may  banish  for  the 
time  being  all  concepts  of  the  pure  reason,  may  assume 
complete  control  and  ask  no  other  question  than 
whether  the  object  is  free,  self-determined,  autonomous. 
If,  then,  the  object  appears  to  be  free,  to  follow  no  law 
but  its  own,  the  practical  reason  is  satisfied;  the  effect 
is  pleasurable  and  we  call  it  beauty.  Schiller  is  care- 
ful to  point  out  that  it  is  all  a  question  of  appearance: 
the  object  is  not  really  free, — since  freedom  abides  only 
in  the  supersensual  world, — but  the  practical  reason 
imputes  or  lends  freedom  to  it.  Hence  beauty  is  free- 
dom in  the  appearance. 

In  a  letter  of  February  23,  1793,  he  applies  his 
dogma  to  an  exposition  of  the  relation  between  nature 
and  art.  The  problem  of  the  artist  in  the  representa- 
tion of  an  object,  so  the  theory  runs,  is  to  convey  a 
suggestion  of  freedom,  that  is,  of  not-being-determined- 
from-without.  This  he  can  only  do  by  making  the 
object  appear  to  be  determined  from  within,  in  other 
words,  to  follow  its  own  law.  It  must  have  a  law  and 
obey  it,  while  seeming  to  be  free.  The  law  of  the 
object  is  what  is  disclosed  by  technique,  which  is  thus 
the  basis  of  our  impression  of  freedom.  Starting  from 
Kant's  saying  that  nature  is  beautiful  when  it  looks  like  * 
art,  and  art  beautiful  when  it  looks  like  nature,  Schiller 
gives  a  large  number  of  concrete  illustrations  of  his 
theory.     Thus  a  vase  is  beautiful  when,  without  preju- 


2  74  Aesthetic  Writings 

dice  to  the  vase-idea,  it  looks  like  a  free  play  of  nature. 
A  birch  is  beautiful  when  it  is  tall  and  slender,  an  oak 
when  it  is  crooked ;  the  shape  in  either  case  expressing 
the  nature  of  the  tree  when  it  follows  nature's  law. 
•  Therefore  ',  he  concludes  his  illustrations,  '  the  empire 
of  taste  is  the  empire  of  freedom ;  the  beautiful  world 
of  sense  being  the  happiest  symbol  of  what  the  moral 
world  should  be,  and  every  beautiful  object  about  me 
being  a  happy  citizen  who  calls  out:  Be  free  like  me.* 

It  did  not  escape  our  theorist  that  his  hard-won 
criterion  of  beauty  was  after  all,  apparently,  an  idea  of 
the  reason.  He  was  however  prepared  to  meet  this 
difficulty  and  promised  to  do  so  in  a  future  letter.  But 
the  aesthetic  correspondence  with  Korner  was  not  con- 
tinued beyond  February.  The  project  of  the  *  Kallias  * 
continued  for  some  time  longer  to  occupy  Schiller's 
mind,  but  a  fresh  attack  of  illness  intervened,  and  when 
he  was  again  able  to  work  he  turned  his  mind  to  an 
essay  upon  *  Winsomeness  and  Dignity  '  {Anmut  und 
WUrde).  It  was  written  in  May  and  June,  1793,  and 
printed  soon  afterwards  in  the  New  Thalia.  In  this 
essay  we  can  observe  a  growing  independence  of 
thought  and  an  amazing  gift  for  the  analysis  of  subtle 
impressions.  In  the  main  it  is  lucid  enough,  especially 
when  one  calls  in  the  aid  of  the  preceding  letters  to 
Korner;  but  portions  are  hard  reading.  To  give  the 
gist  of  it  in  a  few  words  is  next  to  impossible,  because 
it  is  so  largely  taken  up  with  superfine  distinctions  in 
the  meaning  of  words  for  which  our  language  has  at 
best  but  rough  equivalents. 

It  will  be  recalled  that  Kant  had  denied  pure  beauty 
to  the  human  form,  on  the  ground  that  the  human  form 


Essay  on  Winsomencss  and  Dignity     275 

expresses  the  moral  dignity  of  human  nature,  which  is 
an  idea  of  the  reason.  Schiller  was  piqued  by  this 
dictum  to  test  his  theory  of  beauty  on  the  human  form. 
He  begins,  in  a  manner  fitted  to  make  old  Homer 
smile,  with  a  rationalizing  account  of  the  girdle  of 
Venus, — the  girdle  which  Venus  lends  to  Juno  when 
the  latter  wishes  to  excite  the  amorous  desire  of  Jove. 
Venus,  we  are  told,  is  pure  beauty  as  it  comes  from 
the  hand  of  nature.  Her  girdle  makes  her  *  winsome  '. 
So  winsomeness  is  something  distinct  from  beauty; 
something  transferable,  movable.  It  is  then  further 
defined  as  beauty  of  motion ;  as  the  special  prerogative 
of  man;  as  the  element  of  beauty  which  is  not  given 
by  nature  but  is  produced  by  the  object.  The  essay 
then  goes  on  to  make  a  distinction  between  architec- 
tonic and  technical  beauty.  The  former  is  defined  as 
a  beautiful  presentation  of  the  aims  of  nature,  the  latter 
as  referring  to  the  aims  themselves.  The  aesthetic 
faculty  is  concerned  with  architechtonic  beauty.  In 
contemplation  of  an  object  it  isolates  the  appearance 
and  is  affected  by  that  alone,  irrespective  of  any  ideas 
of  purpose  or  adaptation.  At  the  same  time  the 
reason  imputes  freedom  to  the  object,  and  when  the 
object  is  a  human  form,  this  imputed  freedom,  whereby 
the  object  seems  to  assert  its  own  autonomous  per- 
sonality, this  which  is  superadded  to  the  beauty  that 
nature  creates  by  the  law-governed  adaptation  of  means 
to  ends,  is  winsomeness. — All  of  which  seems  to  mean 
substantially  this :  That  while  Pygmalion's  statue  was 
still  ivory  it  was  beautiful;  but  when  it  became  a 
woman  with  winsome  ways  she  was  winsome. 
.     Having  demonstrated  to  his  satisfaction  that  beauty 


2  76  Aesthetic  Writings 

is  really  compounded  of  two  elements,  first  the  sensuous 
pleasure  caused  by  the  play  of  personality,  and  secondly 
the  rational  gratification  caused  by  the  idea  of  adapta- 
tion to  an  end,  Schiller  takes  up  the  questions  of  moral 
beauty  and  of  the  ideal  of  character.  He  deprecates 
Kant's  strenuous  insistence  upon  the  categorical  im- 
perative of  duty.  A  man,  he  urges,  must  be  free ;  and 
the  slavery  of  duty  is  no  better  than  any  other  slavery. 
Virtue  is  inclination  to  duty,  and  the  ideal  is  to  be 
found  in  the  perfect  equipoise  of  the  sensuous  and  the 
rational  nature;  in  other  words,  when  '  thou  shalt '  and 
*  I  would  '  pull  steadily  and  harmoniously  in  the  same 
direction.  So  he  defines  'dignity'  {Wiirde)  as  the 
expression  of  a  lofty  mind,  just  as  winsomeness  is  the 
expression  of  a  beautiful  soul.  Control  of  impulses  by 
moral  strength  is  intellectual  freedom,  and  dignity  is 
the  visible  expression  of  this  freedom.  Dignity  is 
manifested  rather  in  suffering  {vtadoz),  winsomeness  in 
behavior  (^i9o?).  Each  acts  as  a  check  upon  the 
other.  We  demand  that  virtue  be  winsome  and  that 
inclination  be  dignified,  and  where  winsomeness  and 
dignity  are  present  in  harmonious  equipoise  in  the  same 
person,  there  the  expression  of  humanity  is  complete. 

In  the  essay  just  spoken  of  reference  is  made  more 
than  once  to  a  contemplated  *  Analytic  of  the  Beauti- 
ful ',  which  was  to  clear  up  this  and  that.  Instead  of 
attempting  a  treatise,  however,  Schiller  chose  to  go  on 
settling  his  account  with  Kant  through  the  medium  of 
contributions  to  the  New  Thalia.  Those  published 
immediately  (1793-4)  were  the  essay  *  On  the  Sub- 
lime', which  included  a  special  chapter  *  On  the 
Pathetic ' :    and    *  Scattered    Reflections    on    Various 


Essay  on  the  Sublime  277 

Esthetic  Subjects  ' .  Two  other  papers  of  kindred 
import,  dating  from  this  period,  were  not  published 
until  1 80 1.  These  were:  'On  the  Artistic  Use  of  the 
Vulgar  and  the  Low  ',  and  a  second  disquisition  *  On 
the  Sublime  '. 

Following  Kant  Schiller  defines  the  sublime  as  the 
impression  produced  by  an  object  which  excites  in 
man's  sensuous  nature  a  feeling  of  weakness  and  de- 
pendence, and  at  the  same  time  in  his  rational  nature 
a  feeling  of  freedom  and  superiority.  He  objects, 
however,  to  the  Kantian  nomenclature.  For  the  two 
kinds  of  sublime  which  Kant  called  the  mathematical 
and  the  dynamic,  he  proposes  the  names  of  the  theo- 
retical and  the  practical ;  meaning  by  the  former  that 
which  tends  to  overawe  the  mind,  by  the  latter  that 
which  tends  to  overawe  the  feeling.  Then  follows  a 
long  and  juiceless  Begriffszergliederung,  which  may 
be  passed  over  as  containing  little  that  is  of  impor- 
tance for  the  understanding  of  Schiller's  individuality. 
At  last  he  comes  to  the  subject  of  tragic  pathos,  as  the 
most  important  phase  of  the  practical-sublime.  Here 
he  lays  down  the  dogma  that  the  final  aim  of  art  is  the 
representation  of  the  supersensuous.  The  essence  of 
tragic  pathos  is  declared  to  be  the  representation  of 
moral  superiority  under  the  stress  of  suffering.  The 
hero's  sufferings  must  seem  to  be  real  that  he  may 
obtain  due  credit  for  his  moral  triumph.  In  connection 
with  this  thought  Schiller  takes  occasion  to  deride  the 
genteel  sufferers  of  the  French  classic  tragedy  and  to 
commend  the  Greeks  for  their  fidelity  to  nature.  At 
the  same  time  he  utters  his  word  of  warning  to  those 
poets   who   think   to   gain   their  end   merely  by   the 


278  Aesthetic  Writings 

spectacle  of  great  suffering.  The  sensuous,  he  insists, 
has  in  itself  no  aesthetic  value;  it  is  the  moral  resist- 
ance that  counts,  and  the  suffering  is  needed  only  to 
show  that  there  really  was  something  to  resist.  The 
latter  part  of  the  essay  is  directed  against  those  who 
would  try  the  creations  of  the  poet  by  the  standards  of 
the  moral  judgment.  It  is  argued  that  the  moral  and 
the  aesthetic  spheres  of  interest  are  separate  and  dis- 
tinct. The  poet  is  concerned  with  the  latter.  What 
he  needs  for  his  purpose  is  the  manifestation  of  strength; 
whether  the  strength  is  put  forth  to  a  good  or  an  evil 
purpose  is,  in  itself,  a  matter  of  indifference.  The  poet 
cannot  serve  two  masters. 

In  all  these  discussions  of  the  sublime  and  the 
pathetic,  et  cetera,  Schiller  exhibits  a  pathetically 
sublime  faith  in  the  possibility  of  settling  the  questions 
at  issue  by  the  analytic  method.  He  writes  as  if  the 
human  mind  were  composed  of  air-tight  compartments, 
wherein  the  various  operations  of  reason,  understand- 
ing, taste,  feeHng  and  what  not,  are  carried  on  under 
immutable  laws  growing  out  of  the  nature  of  man. 
His  philosophy  is  also  dualistic.  He  regards  *  man  ' 
as  consisting  of  two  parts  joined  like  the  Siamese  twins. 
The  one  part,  sensuous  man,  which  is  like  unto  the 
animals,  is  a  part  of  *  nature  ' ;  the  other  part,  the 
rational  man,  which  is  dowered  with  the  birth-right  of 
'freedom',  is  outside  of  nature  and  above  it.  The 
untenableness  of  this  conception  has  become  since 
Schiller's  time  increasingly  evident.  Moreover,  we 
have  learned  to  look  upon  all  things  under  the  aspect 
of  development  and  to  know  that  man's  reason,  like 
the  rest  of  him,  is  very  much  the  creature  of  time  and 


Letters  to  the  Duke  of  Augustenburg      279 

place.  This  being  so,  one  finds  it  difficult,  nowadays, 
to  read  the  philosophic  lucubrations  of  Schiller  with 
that  patience  which  their  well-meant  seriousness  really 
deserves.  Indeed  he  himself  seems  to  have  felt  all 
along  that  there  was  some  danger  of  his  being  carried 
too  far  away  into  the  region  of  barren  speculation; 
wherefore  it  was  necessary,  as  he  thought,  not  only 
to  present  his  ideas  in  a  popular  form,  but  also  to 
prove  their  relevancy  to  the  practical  concerns  of 
l\uman  life. 

It  was  with  this  thought  in  mind  that  he  finally 
began,  instead  of  the^  KalHas ',  a  series  of  letters  to 
his  benefactor,  the  Prince  of  Augustenburg.  In  a  long 
letter  of  July  13,  1793,  he  explained  his  point  of  view. 
The  political  dream  of  the  century,  he  declared,  that 
is,  the  dream  of  recreating  society  upon  a  foundation 
of  pure  reason,  had  come  to  naught.  *  Man  '  had 
shown  himself  unfit  for  freedom.  His  chains  removed, 
he  stood  revealed  as  a  barbarian  and  a  slave, — the 
slave  of  unruly  passion.  And  this  notwithstanding  all 
that  the  century  had  done  for  the  enlightenment  of  his 
mind !  Evidently  the  need  of  the  hour  and  of  the  future 
was  not  so  much  enlightenment  of  the  mind  as  disci- 
pline of  the  feelings.  In  a  number  of  subsequent 
letters,  admirable  in  style  and  spirit,  Schiller  set  forth 
his  theory  of  aesthetic  education  and  his  vision  of  the 
great  good  to  be  accomplished  by  it  in  the  redemption 
of  mankind  from  the  dominion  of  the  grosser  passions. 
Objections  were  duly  considered,  especially  the  dis- 
couraging fact  that,  historically,  aesthetic  refinement 
has  too  often  coincided  with  supineness  of  character 
and  moral  degeneracy.     This  consideration  made  it  an 


28o  Aesthetic  Writings 

important  part  of  the  problem  to  show  how  the  dangers 
of  aesthetic  culture  could  best  be  counteracted. 

The  letters  to  the  Danish  prince  formed  the  basis  of 
the  '  Letters  on  Esthetic  Education',  which  were 
published  in  1795  in  the  Horen^  and  constitute  the 
ripest  and  most  pleasing  expression  of  Schiller's 
aesthetic  philosophy.  In  the  first  ten  of  the  *  Letters  ' 
he  discusses  the  spirit  of  the  age,  for  the  purpose  of 
showing  that  some  sort  of  educational  process  is  needed 
in  order  to  fit  mankind  for  the  high  calling  of  the 
freeman.  The  problem  is  to  transform  the  state-ruled- 
by-force  into  a  state-ruled-by-reason.  To  this  end 
man  must  learn  to  resist  and  subdue  the  two  inveterate 
enemies  of  his  nobility,  namely,  the  tyranny  of  sense 
which  leads  to  savagery,  and  the  inertness  of  mind 
which  leads  to  barbarism.  Schiller  defines  the  savage 
as  a  man  whose  feelings  control  his  principles,  the 
barbarian  as  a  man  whose  principles  destroy  his  feel- 
ings. At  present,  he  declares,  the  mass  of  men  still 
oscillate  between  savagery  and  barbarism,  but  the  man 
comme  il  faut  must  establish  and  preserve  a  perfect 
equipoise  between  his  sensuous  and  his  rational  nature. 
Whither  shall  he  look  for  help }  The  state  cannot 
aid  him,  for  it  treats  him  as  if  he  had  no  reason;  nor 
can  philosophy  save  him  through  the  mere  cultivation 
of  the  reason,  for  it  treats  him  as  if  he  had  no  feelings. 
His  only  redeemer  is  the  aesthetic  sense,  the  love  of 
beauty. 

The  *  Letters  *  then  take  up  the  desperate  task  of 
showing  how  the  aesthetic  sense  can  do  this  wonderful 
work.     Descending  to  the  lowest  nadir  of  abstraction, 
— Schiller  calls  it  rising  to  the  highest  heights, — he 


Letters  on  Aesthetic  Education  281 

brings  up  two  ultimate  instincts  or  bents  of  mankind, 
to  which  he  gives  the  appalling  names  of  the  '  thing- 
bent  '  and  the  *  form-bent '  {Sachtrieb  and  Formtrieb). 
The  former  impels  to  a  change  of  status,  the  latter  to 
the  preservation  of  personality.  The  one  is  satisfied 
with  what  is  mutable  and  finite,  the  other  demands  the 
immutable  and  the  rational.  To  harmonize  these  two 
instincts,  to  take  care  that  neither  gets  the  better  of  the 
other  or  invades  the  other's  territory,  is  the  problem 
of  culture.  For  a  driver  of  the  ill-matched  team 
Schiller  calls  in  the  Spieltrieb^  or  play-bent,  which  is 
only  a  new  name  for  the  aesthetic  faculty.  His  idea  is 
that  in  the  moment  of  aesthetic  contemplation  the 
sensuous  and  the  rational  instinct  both  find  their 
account.  In  the  act  of  escaping  from  the  serious  pull 
of  thought  and  feeling  to  a  mental  state  which  satisfies 
both  without  succumbing  completely  to  either,  he 
finds  an  analogy  to  the  act  of  playing.  At  the  same 
time  he  is  careful  to  point  out  that  this  kind  of  play  is 
different  from  the  sports  of  common  life.  As  he  uses 
the  word,  it  means  surrender  to  the  illusion  of  art. 
Play  is  thus  the  symbol  of  the  highest  self-realization. 
Only  in  playing  is  man  completely  man. 

The  last  ten  letters  are  devoted  to  what  Schiller, 
following  Kant,  calls  '  melting  beauty  '  {schmelzende 
Schonheif),  which  is  opposed  to  '  energizing  beauty  ' 
{energische  Schonheit).  The  former  is  the  natural  cor- 
rective to  the  emotional  excess  which  leads  to  savagery, 
while  the  latter  (the  sublime,  the  stirring,)  is  the  anti- 
dote to  the  mental  inertness  which  leads  to  barbarism. 
It  is  admitted  that  the  aesthetic  state  is  perfectly  neutral 
so  far  as  concerns  the  influencing  of  the  will.     A  good 


282  Aesthetic  Writings 

work  of  art  should  leave  us  in  a  state  of  lofty  serenity 
and  freedom  of  mind.  If  we  find  ourselves  influenced 
to  a  particular  course  of  action,  that  is  a  sure  sign  that 
the  art  was  bad.  Nevertheless, — and  here  lies  the 
kernel  of  the  whole  discussion,  so  far  as  it  bears  upon 
education, — the  aesthetic  state  is  a  necessary  stage  in 
the  restoration  of  imperilled  freedom.  It  is  valuable 
morally  simply  because  it  is  neutral  ground.  When  a 
man  is  under  the  too  exclusive  domination  of  either 
principles  or  feelings,  he  is  in  danger  of  becoming  a 
slave,  and  needs  to  be  pulled  back  to  the  neutral  belt 
of  freedom,  in  order  that  he  may  start  afresh.  *  In  a 
word  ',  says  Schiller,  *  there  is  no  other  way  of  making 
the  sensuous  man  rational  except  by  first  making  him 
aesthetic'  Finally  the  *  Letters  '  take  up  the  evolution 
of  man  from  the  state  of  savagery  and  attempt  to  show 
argumentatively  and  in  detail  how  his  progress  has 
been  determined  by  the  development  of  his  aesthetic 
sense. 

Such  are  the  *  Letters  on  -Esthetic  Education*, 
which  Schiller  regarded,  in  the  year  1795,  as  a  tract 
for  the  times.  Years  agone  he  had  made  Karl  Moor 
talk  of  poisoning  the  ocean ;  now  he  himself  was  think- 
ing to  sweeten  a  poisoned  ocean  with  a  bottle  of 
aesthetic  syrup.  We  see  that  the  gist  of  the  whole 
matter  is  simply  this :  That  sanity  and  refinement  are 
pressing  needs ;  that  good  art  makes  for  these  things 
and  in  so  doing  makes  indirectly  for  progress  in  right 
living  ind  right  thinking.  This  looks  like  a  painfully 
small  result  to  have  been  reached  by  such  long  and 
laborious  logic-chopping;  so  that  one  is  reminded  of 
Carlyle's  cynical  observation  that  the  end  and  aim  of  the 


Some  Minor  Papers  283 

Kantian  philosophy  * '  seem  not  to  make  abstruse  things 
simple,  but  to  make  simple  things  abstruse".  It  is 
to  be  remarked,  however,  that  the  real  value  of  the 
'  Letters  '  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  logic-chopping,  for 
which  their  author  apologizes  again  and  again;  not  in 
the  **  dreadful  array  of  first  principles,  the  forest  huge 
of  terminology  and  definitions,  where  the  panting  in- 
tellect of  weaker  men  wanders  as  in  pathless  thickets 
and  at  length  sinks  powerless  to  the  earth,  oppressed 
with  fatigue  and  suffocated  with  scholastic  miasma",^ 
— but  in  the  incidental  flashes  of  luminous  and  sugges- 
tive comment. 

Having  himself  conquered  the  Kantian  dialect  and 
learned  to  write  it,  Schiller  had  little  patience  with 
those  who  supposed  that  philosophic  truth  could  and 
should  be  set  forth  in  the  easy  manner  of  a  fireside 
yarn.  It  was  to  free  his  mind  on  this  subject  that  he 
published,  in  one  of  the  early  numbers  of  the  Horeiiy 
an  essay  *  On  the  Necessary  Limits  of  the  Beautiful  *. 
Here  the  burden  of  his  thought  is  that  the  philosopher, 
aiming  at  truth,  must  not  yield  to  the  seduction  of 
trying  to  write  beautifully.  His  concern  is  with  fact 
and  logic;  imagination  and  feeling  have  no  place  in 
his  domain.  The  lure  of  beauty  may  relax  the  mind 
and  endanger  truth,  just  as  it  may  relax  the  will  and 
endanger  morality.  This  last  thought  contained  the 
germ  of  his  further  essays,  '  On  the  Dangers  of  Esthetic 
Culture  '  and  '  On  the  Moral  Benefit  of  Esthetic  Cul- 
ture'. These,  however,  are  only  an  amplification  of 
ideas  contained  in  the  '  Letters  ' . 

There   remain  for  consideration,    to    complete    our 

^Carlyle's  "Life  of  Schiller",  page  137  (edition  of  1845). 


284  Aesthetic  Writings 

survey  of  Schiller's  philosophical  writings,  his  short 
essay  on  Matthison's  poems  and  his  long  disquisition 
upon  *  Naive  and  Sentimental  Poetry'.  In  the  review 
he  discusses  the  subject  oflandscape  poetry,  thus  touch- 
ing upon  a  question  that  had  occupied  Lessing  in  the 
*  Laokoon  '.  But  instead  of  arguing  like  Lessing  that 
detailed  description  of  objects  is  necessarily  out  of  place 
in  poetry,  Schiller  defends  it  as  capable  in  a  high 
degree  of  giving  pleasure.  The  poetic  effectiveness  of 
a  description  he  finds  to  consist,  first,  in  the  truth- 
fulness of  the  description;  secondly,  in  its  power, 
analogous  to  that  of  music,  to  excite  vague  emotion; 
and  finally,  in  its  power  to  awaken  ideas  by  the  law  of 
association.  He  distinguishes  between  *  true  '  nature 
and  *  actual '  nature.  We  arrive  at  true  nature  when_ 
we  take  away  from  /actual;  nature  whatever  is  acci-^ 
dental,  peculiar  or  unnecessary.  This  process  is  pre- 
cisely what  is  described  in  one  of  the  '  Kallias  *  letters 
as  '  idealization  '. 

To  idealize  an  object  is,  then,  in  Schiller's  vocabu- 
lary, not  to  beautify  it,  or  to  make  it  in  any  way  other 
than  it  is,  but  to  portray  the  '  idea  '  of  it,  that  is,  its 
essential  truth,  apart  from  all  that  is  accidental  or  in- 
dividual. He  lays  down  the  general  rule  that  poetry 
is  only  concerned  with  tru^  (or  ideal)  nature  in  this 
sense  ;  never  with  actual  (or  historical)  nature.  *  Every 
individual  man  ',  he  declares,  'is  by  just  so  much  less 
a  man  as  he  is  an  individual ;  every  mode  of  feeling  is 
by  just  so  much  less  necessary  and  purely  human  as 
it  is  peculiar  to  a  particular  person.  The  grand  style 
consists  in  the  rejection  of  all  that  is  accidental  and 
the  pure  expression  of  the  necessary. ' 


Naive  and  Sentimental  Poetry  285 

Of  the  essay  upon  *  Naive  and  Sentimental  Poetry  ', 
contributed  to  the  Horen  in  1795,  the  first  part  is 
devoted  to  the  '  Naive ',  which  is  defined  as  nature  in 
felt  contrast  with  art.  To  be  naive  an  action  must 
not  only  be  natural  but  must  put  us  to  shame  by  sug- 
gesting a  contrast  with  our  own  sophisticated  standards. 
From  this  it  follows  that  our  pleasure  in  the  naive, 
being  connected  with  an  idea  of  the  reason,  is  not 
purely  aesthetic,  but  partly  moral.  The  naivete  of 
children  appeals  to  us  because  they  are  what  we  were 
and  what  we  should  again  become.  They  represent 
an  ideal,  a  theophany.  Though  we  may  look  down 
upon  the  childish,  we  can  only  look  up  to  the  child- 
like. A  naive  action  always  implies  a  triumph  of 
nature  over  art:  if  it  is  unintentional  (naive  of  surprise) 
we  are  amused;  if  deliberate  (naive  of  character)  we 
are  touched.  Genius  is  always  naive.  Both  in  its 
works  and  in  social  intercourse,  it  manifests  the  sim- 
plicity and  directness  of  nature.  It  is  modest  because 
nature  is  modest;  but  cares  nothing  for  decency,  for 
decency  is  the  offspring  of  corruption.  It  is  sensible, 
but  not  shrewd.  It  expresses  its  loftiest  and  deepest 
thoughts  with  naive  grace :  they  are  divine  oracles  from 
the  mouth  of  a  child. 

These  thoughts  duly  expounded,  the  essay  goes  on 
to  consider  the  modern  man's  feeling  for  nature.  This 
results,  according  to  Schiller,  from  our  imputing 
naivete  to  the  non-rational  world.  We  are  conscious 
of  having  wandered  away  from  the  state  of  innocence, 
happiness  and  perfection.  '  Nature  '  represents  this 
state  to  our  imaginations;  it  is  the  voice  of  the  mother 
calling  us  back  home,  or  whispering  to  us  of  boundless 


286  Aesthetic  Writings 

happiness  and  perfection.  Poetry  which  expresses  this 
boundless  longing  for  the  ideal  is  '  sentimental  ',  while 
that  which  reflects  nature  herself,  in  some  definite  part 
or  phase,  is  'naive'.  The  na'ive  poet  is  nature;  the 
sentimental  poet  seeks  aTost  nature.  The  Greeks  are 
prevailingly  naive,  the  moderns  prevailingly  sentimen- 
tal, but  neither  in  any  exclusive  sense.  The  words 
are  to  be  understood  as  expressing  only  a  mode  of 
feeling.  The  same  poet,  the  same  poem,  may  be 
naive  at  one  moment  and  sentimental  at  another.  All 
sentimental  poetry,  then,  is  concerned  with  the  dis- 
parity or  contrast  between  reality  and  the  ideal.  If 
the  poet  is  mainly  interested  in  the  real,  we  have,  in 
the  broad  sense,  satire,  which  may  be  pathetic  or 
humorous.  If  he  dwells  more  upon  the  ideal,  we  have 
elegiac  poetry- — elegiac  in  the  narrower  sense,  if  the 
ideal  is  conceived  as  a  distant  object  of  longing,  idyllic 
if  it  is  portrayed  as  a  present  reality.  The  second  part 
of  the  essay  is  devoted  to  a  review  of  the  sentimental 
poets  of  modern  Germany. 

In  the  third  part  the  naive  and  sentimental  poets  are 
■contrasted.  The  Jormer.  Schiller  contends,  is  con- 
cerned with  the  definite^^  the  latter  with  the  infinite. 
From  the  realist  "we  turn  easily  and  with  pleasure  to 
actual  life ;  the  idealist  puts  us  for  the  moment  out  of 
humor  with  it.  The  one  follows  the  laws  of  nature, 
the  other  those  of  reason.  The  one  asks  what  a  thing 
is  good  for,  the  other  whether  it  is  good.  Withal, 
however,  Schiller  is  careful  to  insist  that  even  the  naive 
poet,  the  realist,  is  properly  concerned  only  with  true 
nature,  and  not  with  actual  nature.  Everything  that 
is, — for  example,   a  violent    outbreak  of  passion, — is 


Naive  and  Sentimental  Poetry  287 

actual  nature ;  but  this  is  not  true  human  nature,  because 
that  implies  free  self-determination.  True  human 
nature  can  never  be  anything  but  noble.  '  What  dis- 
gusting  absurdities  ',  exclaims  Schiller, — and  the  words 
might  well  be  taken  to  heart  by  some  of  our  modern 
naturalists — '  have  resulted  both  in  criticism  and  in 
practice  from  this  confusion  of  true  with  actual  nature  t 
What  trivialities  are  permitted,  yea  even  praised > 
because  unfortunately  they  are  actual  nature !  '  It  is  a 
part  of  Schiller's  theory  that  the  true^  realist  and  the 
sane  idealist  must  finally  come  together  on  common 
ground. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
XLbc  (3reat  Duumvirate 

Nun  kann  ich  aber  hoffen,  dasz  wir,  so  viel  von  dem  Wege 
noch  iibrig  sein  mag,  in  Gemeinschaft  durchwandeln  werden, 
und  mit  um  so  groszerem  Gewinn,  da  die  letzten  Gefahrten  auf 
einer  langen  Reise  sich  immer  am  meisten  zu  sagen  haben. 

Letter  of  I7g4. 

The  coupled  names  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  denote 
a  literary  epoch  as  well  as  a  peculiarly  inspiring  per- 
sonal friendship.  What  a  vista  opens  before  the  mind's 
eye  when  one  thinks  of  all  the  influence  that  went  out 
from  them  into  the  wide  world  during  the  nineteenth 
century!  The  visitor  to  Weimar  who  goes  to  look  at 
Rietschel's  famous  statue  in  front  of  the  theater  has  a 
sensation  like  that  of  standing  at  the  source  of  a  mighty 
river.  Of  course  the  men  and  their  time  have  been 
greatly  idealized ;  like  the  sculptor,  the  imagination  of 
posterity  has  lifted  them  above  the  level  of  the  earth, 
joined  their  hands  and  given  them  the  pose  of  far- 
seeing  literary  heroes.  We  think  of  each  as  increased 
by  the  whole  strength  of  the  other.  As  Herman 
Grimm  puts  it  algebraically,  the  formula  is  not  G  +  S, 
but  G(+  S)  +  S(+  G).i 

And  all  this  hits  an  essential  truth,  albeit  the  stu- 
dent of  the  documents — the  letters  and  journals  of  the 

*  "Goethe",  einundzwanzigstc  Vorlesung. 
288 


RIETSCHEL'S  GOETHE   AND   SCHILLER   MONUMENT   AT 
WEIMAR 


CHAPTER   vrv 

ZTbe  <3reat  Duumriratc 

Nun  ^kann  ich  aber  hot?  lel  von  dem  Wege 

n^ch  tibrig  sein  mag,  in  •  hwandeln  werden, 

und  mit  um  so  grdszerem  Gewinn,  da  die  IcUl^n  defahrten  auf 
emer  langen  Reise  sich  ifnmr'r  am  meitter  -n  haben. 

'ter  of  I7g4. 

The  coupled  names  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  denote 
a  literary  epoch  as  well  as  a  peculiarly  inspiring  per- 
sot  '  '^  '  '  '  '  ).  What  a  vista  opens  before  the  mind's 
eyt  ihinks  of  all  the  influence  that  went  out 

from  them  into  the  wide  w^orld  during  the  nineteenth 
century!  The  visitor  to  Weimar  who  goes  to  look  at 
Rietschers  famous  statue  in  front  of  the  theater  has  a 
sensation  like  that  of  standing  at  the  source  of  a  mighty 
river.  Of  course  the  men  and  their  time  have  been 
greatly  idealized ;  like  the  sculptor,  the  imagination  of 
posterity  has  lifted  them  above  the  level  of  the  earth, 
joined  their  hands  and  given  them  the  pose  <^  far- 
seeing  literary  heroes.  We  think  of  each  as  increased 
by  the  whole  stre*^^'*-^^  ^^  '^♦^  m.  ..  ^g  Herman 
Grimm  puts  it  algc  a  is  not  G-f-  S, 

but  G(+  S)  +  S(+  G; 

And  all  this  hits  an  essential  truth,  albeit  the  stu- 
dent of  the  documents — the  letters  and  journals  of  the 

*  *•  Goethe",  cinundiwanzigste  Vorlesung. 

TA   TH3MUHOM   ^3JJIHD2  QUA   3HT3O0  2'J3HD2T3lfl 
flAMISW 


Goethe  and  Schiller  289 

duumvirs,  and  of  their  friends  and  enemies — has  great 
difficulty  at  times  to  imagine  himself  in  an  atmosphere 
of  heroism.  No  nation,  no  public  life  of  any  account; 
a  complete  lack  of  interest,  apparently,  in  many 
matters  that  now  bulk  very  large  in  the  minds  of  men ; 
a  small  theater,  equal  to  none  but  very  modest 
demands;  a  few  engravings  and  plaster-casts  and 
paintings — many  of  them  very  poor — to  serve  as  a  basis 
for  theories  of  art;  a  little  optical  apparatus,  a  few 
minerals  and  plants  and  bones,  to  aid  in  the  advance- 
ment of  science;  everything  material  on  a  small  scale, 
— this  was  Weimar  a  hundred  years  ago.  Truly  a 
restricted  outlook  upon  this  spacious  world  as  it  appears 
to  us  to-day! 

And  then  the  duumvirs  had  their  struggle  with  the 
infinitely  little,  and  they  fussed  over  this  and  that. 
This  is  especially  true  of  Goethe.  His  journals  produce 
upon  the  reader  now  and  then  not  so  much  an  impres- 
sion of  glorious  many-sidedness  as  of  precious  time 
wasted  in  futile  puttering.  But  who  shall  dare  to  say 
that  it  was  so  in  reality  ?  The  genius  of  life  tells 
every  great  man  what  he  can  do,  and  it  is  for  posterity 
to  accept  him  and  understand  him  as  he  was,  without 
complaint  and  without  sophistication.  What  Goethe 
and  Schiller  did  in  the  midst  of  all  their  other  doings, 
was  to  set  their  stamp  upon  the  culture  of  their  time; 
to  create  a  new  ideal  of  letters  and  of  life,  and  to  enrich 
their  country's  literature  with  a  number  of  masterpieces 
which  have  since  furnished  food  and  inspiration  to 
countless  myriads.  This  is  quite  enough  to  justify  a 
perennial  curiosity  concerning  the  details  of  their 
alliance. 


IQO 


The  Great  Duumvirate 


For  six  years  the  two  men,  though  living  as  neigh- 
bors with  many  friends  and  many  interests  in  common, 
had  steadily  held  each  other  aloof.  That  they  did  so 
was  Goethe's  fault,  at  least  in  the  beginning.  We 
may  be  very  sure  that  a  friendly  advance  from  him 
would  have  melted  Schiller's  animosity  as  the  sun 
melts  April  snow.  But  he  did  not  say  the  word.  He 
looked  upon  Schiller  as  the  spokesman  of  a  new  and 
perverse  generation  that  knew  not  Joseph;  and  so  he 
went  his  own  way,  serenely  indifferent  to  the  per- 
sonality of  the  man  whose  talent  he  had  recognized 
by  helping  him  to  a  Jena  professorship.  He  paid  some 
attention,  it  is  true,  to  Schiller's  philosophic  writings, 
but  what  he  read  did  not  altogether  please  him.  When 
the  essay  upon  '  Winsomeness  and  Dignity  '  came  out, 
it  seemed  to  him  that  Schiller,  in  his  enthusiasm  for 
freedom  and  self-determination,  was  inclined  to  lord  it 
all  too  proudly  over  mother  Nature.  Goethe  was  no 
less  interested  in  *  ideas  '  than  Schiller,  but  he  had  not 
the  same  fondness  for  abstract  reasoning  from  mental 
premises.  His  starting-point  was  always  the  external 
fact,  and  he  regarded  ideas  as  possessing  a  sort  of 
objective  reality.  His  homage  was  paid  to  nature  and 
the  five  senses;  Schiller's  to  the  deductive  reason. 

Nevertheless,  the  whole  trend  of  Schiller's  aesthetic 
speculations  brought  him  steadily  nearer  to  Goethe's 
way  of  thinking.  His  intense  Hellenism ;  his  insistence 
upon  the  immense  importance  of  art  as  an  element  of 
culture;  his  fervid  championship  of  art  for  art's  sake; 
his  practical  identification  of  the  ideal  with  the  typical ; 
his  doctrine  of  genius  in  its  relation  to  abstract  dogma, 
and  above  all  his  great  earnestness,  as  of  one  striving 


Beginning  of  Intimacy  291 

with  all  his  powers  towards  the  better  light, — this  and 
much  more  could  not  fail  to  meet  Goethe's  approval. 
And  then  came  the  great  project  of  the  Horen^  which 
was  to  unite  all  the  best  writers  of  Germany  in  a 
common  effort  for  the  advancement  of  letters  and  the 
elevation  of  the  public  taste.  This  was  an  opportunity 
not  to  be  despised,  for  Goethe  was  at  last  beginning  to 
be  weary  of  his  isolation  at  Weimar.  Although  at 
heart  very  desirous  of  exerting  a  large  influence,  he 
had  well-nigh  lost  touch  with  the  literary  public.  For 
four  years  he  had  done  nothing  worthy  of  his  great 
name.  People  took  little  interest  in  his  scientific 
studies,  his  '  Grosz-Cophta ',  and  his  'Citizen-Gen- 
eral '.  He  felt  the  need  of  rehabilitating  himself  So 
when  he  received  Schiller's  polite  invitation  anent  the 
Horen,  he  accepted  with  alacrity;  declaring  himself 
ready  not  only  to  contribute,  but  to  serve  on  the 
editorial  committee.  And  a  few  days  later, — it  was 
on  June  28,  1794,  before  he  had  seen  Schiller  or  ex- 
changed further  letters  with  him, — he  wrote  to  Charlotte 
von  Kalb  that  '  since  the  new  epoch  Schiller  too  was 
becoming  more  friendly  and  trustful  towards  us 
Weimarians  ' ;  whereat  he  rejoiced,  *  hoping  for  much 
good  from  intercourse  with  him  '.  So  we  see  that,  as 
the  matter  then  lay  in  Goethe's  mind,  it  was  Schiller 
who  was  the  distant  and  distrustful  party. 

Thus  the  way  was  all  prepared  for  the  *  Happy 
Event',  as  Goethe  called  it  in  an  oft-quoted  bit  of 
reminiscence  published  many  years  later.  It  chanced 
that  he  and  Schiller  were  both  present  at  a  meeting  of 
naturalists  in  Jena.  As  they  left  the  room  together 
Schiller  let  fall  a  remark  to  the  effect  that  such  piece- 


292 


The  Great  Duumvirate 


meal  treatment  of  nature  as  they  had  been  listening  to 
was  dull  business  for  the  layman.  Goethe  replied  that 
there  were  experts  who  could  not  approve  it  either. 
Then  he  proceeded  to  explain  his  own  views.  They 
reached  Schiller's  house  in  earnest  conversation,  and 
Goethe  went  in  to  continue  his  demonstration  with  the 
aid  of  a  drawing — probably  of  a  typical  plant.  Schiller 
listened  with  seeming  comprehension  and  then  shook 
his  head,  saying:  *  But  that  is  not  an  experience;  that 
is  an  idea.'  Goethe  was  disappointed,  perplexed. 
All  his  labor  had  gone  for  naught,  and  the  awful  chasm 
was  still  yawning.  He  replied  that  he  was  glad  if  he 
had  ideas  without  knowing  it  and  could  actually  see 
them  with  his  eyes.  Schiller  defended  himself  suavely 
as  a  good  Kantian,  and  the  men  separated,  each  in  a 
docile  mood  with  respect  to  the  other. 

Plerman  Grimm  will  have  it  that  Schiller  now  en- 
tered upon  a  crafty  campaign  for  the  conquest  of 
Goethe;  and  really  the  facts  give  some  color  to  such  a 
view,  albeit,  as  we  have  seen,  the  battle  was  more  than 
half  won  before  a  shot  was  fired.  Schiller  had  his 
magazine  very  much  at  heart,  and  besides  that  he  had 
always  been  a  very  sincere  and  ungrudging  admirer  of 
Goethe's  poetic  genius.  Very  likely  he  looked  upon 
him  as  a  weakling  in  philosophy.  To  talk  of  seeing 
ideas  with  the  bodily  eye!  Evidently  there  was  no 
profit  in  bombarding  such  a  man  with  syllogisms.  But 
it  might  be  useful  to  show  that  one  understood  him. 
So  Schiller  sat  him  down  and  wrote  out,  in  the  form  of 
a  letter,  a  little  essay  upon  Goethe's  individuality, 
attributing  to  him  a  wonderful  intuition  whereby  he 
saw  in  advance  all  that  philosophy  could  prove : 


Schiller  on  Goethe^s  Genius  293 

Minds  of  your  sort  seldom  know  how  far  they  have  advanced, 
and  how  little  reason  they  have  to  borrow  from  philosophy, 
which  can  only  learn  from  them.  .  .  .  For  a  long  time,  though 
at  a  considerable  distance,  I  have  been  watching  the  course  of 
your  mind  and  noticing  with  ever-renewed  admiration  the  way 
that  you  have  marked  out  for  yourself.  You  seek  the  necessary 
in  nature,  but  by  the  very  hardest  path, — a  path  which  weaker 
minds  would  take  good  care  not  to  attempt.  You  take  all 
nature  together,  in  order  to  get  light  upon  the  particular.  In 
the  totality  of  her  manifestations  you  hope  to  find  the  rationale 
of  the  individual.  .  .  .  Had  you  been  born  a  Greek  or  even  an 
Italian,  and  thus  surrounded  from  infancy  with  exquisite  scenery 
and  idealizing  art,  your  way  would  have  been  infinitely  short- 
ened, perhaps  rendered  unnecessary.  ...  As  it  was,  having 
been  born  a  German,  you  had  to  refashion  the  old  inferior  nature 
that  was  thrust  upon  your  imagination,  after  the  better  pattern 
which  your  imagination  had  created  ;  and  this  could  only  be 
done  by  means  of  leading  principles.  But  this  logical  direction 
which  the  reflecting  mind  is  compelled  to  take  does  not  tally 
well  with  the  aesthetic  direction  of  the  creating  mind.  So  you 
had  another  task  ;  just  as  you  passed  previously  from  intuition 
to  abstraction,  you  had  now  to  convert  concepts  back  into  intui- 
tions, and  thoughts  into  feelings ;  for  only  through  these  can 
genius  create. 

For  Goethe,  whose  nature  really  craved  friendship 
hardly  less  than  Schiller's,  there  was  something  very 
grateful  in  this  frank  homage  combined  with  rare 
perspicacity.  He  saw  that  Schiller  understood  him  or 
was  at  least  concerned  to  understand  him.  With  all 
their  differences  they  were  spiritual  congeners,  and 
much  might  be  hoped  for  from  this  new  connection. 
So  he  sent  a  very  cordial  reply  to  the  man  who  had 
thus  '  with  friendly  hand  struck  the  balance  of  his 
existence  ' ;  averring  that  he  too  dated  a  new  epoch 
from  their  meeting  in  Jena;  expressing  the  hope  that 


294  The  Great  Duumvirate 

they  might  soon  find  opportunity  for  a  further  inter- 
change of  views  and  that,  having  mutually  cleared  up 
their  past  course  of  thinking,  they  might  proceed  on 
their  way  together.  A  few  weeks  later  Schiller  spent 
two  weeks  as  Goethe's  guest  in  Weimar,  where  long 
discussions,  spun  out  on  one  occasion  from  noon  to 
midnight,  begot  a  perfect  understanding  and  laid  the 
foundation  of  a  lifelong  friendship.  It  was  a  friendship 
based  upon  mutual  respect  and  mutual  need,  full  of 
high  advantage  on  both  sides  and  cherished  loyally  to 
the  end. 

Between  then  and  now  many  and  many  a  writer  has 
compared  Goethe  with  Schiller  and  undertaken  to 
reckon  up  the  balance  of  their  respective  merit.  The 
task  is  not  easy,  even  though  the  world  is  now  well 
agreed  that  Goethe's  was  the  rarer  genius.  No  doubt 
he,  much  more  than  Schiller,  was  destined  to  be  a 
bringer  of  light  to  the  coming  century;  but  the  immense 
prestige  of  his  name  is  due  partly  to  the  happy  fate  that 
gave  him  a  long  life  and  invested  his  old  age  with  the 
glamour  of  literary  kingship.  If  we  compare  the  actual 
production  of  the  two  men  during  the  eleven  years  of 
their  association,  it  is  not  at  all  clear  that  the  palm 
should  be  given  to  Goethe.  The  five  plays  of  Schiller, 
with  the  *  Song  of  the  Bell  ',  and  the  best  of  his  shorter 
poems,  will  bear  comparison  very  well,  in  the  aggre- 
gate, with  'Wilhelm  Meister ',  'Hermann  and  Doro- 
thea', the  'Natural  Daughter'  and  those  portions  of 
'  Faust '  which  were  written  at  this  time.  Unques- 
tionably Goethe  at  his  best  was  a  far  greater  poet  than 
Schiller ;  but  he  was  less  steadily  at  his  best,  and  his 
artistic  conscience  was  more  lax  than  Schiller's.      He 


Comparison  of  Goethe  and  Schiller      295 

envisaged  life  more  largely  and  more  truly,  and  he 
wrote  with  his  eye  upon  the  object.  His  nature  inclined 
to  placid  contemplation;  he  was  no  orator,  though 
something  of  a  preacher.  He  did  not  care  so  much 
to  stir  the  depths  of  feeling  as  to  inform  and  liberalize. 
In  his  imaginative  work  he  let  himself  go  mit  holdem 
Irren  and  preferred  to  avoid  artificial  surprises  and 
stagy  contrasts.  Wherefore  his  work  is  the  more 
illuminative,  the  more  suggestive, — he  is  the  poet  of 
the  literary  class.  Schiller,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
an  orator  who  never  lost  sight  of  the  effect  he  wished 
to  produce.  He  worked  more  intensely,  more 
methodically,  and  was  less  dependent  upon  mood. 
He  is  thus  the  poet  of  those  who  care  less  for  delicacy 
of  workmanship  than  for  sonorous  diction,  elevated 
sentiment  and  telling  effects.  There  is  room  in  the 
world  for  both  kinds  of  endowment. 

It  is  quite  probable  that  Goethe  and  Schiller  would 
sooner  or  later  have  come  together  in  a  friendly  rela- 
tion even  if  the  Horen  had  never  been  thought  of;  and 
in  that  case  their  friendship  would  have  lacked  the 
militant  tinge  that  it  presently  took  on.  It  was  the 
magazine  that  leagued  them  together  as  allies  against 
the  forces  of  Philistia  and  made  Thuringia  the  storm- 
center  of  a  new  literary  movement.  But  for  this  it 
would  probably  never  have  occurred  to  any  one  to  dub 
them  '  the  Dioscuri  ' . 

Prior  to  the  appearance  of  the  first  number,  in 
January,  1795,  the  new  journal  had  been  well  adver- 
tised. Cotta  was  prepared  to  spend  money  on  it 
freely;  the  contributors  were  to  be  handsomely  paid, 
and  twenty-five  of  the  best  known  writers  in  Germany 


296  The  Great  Duumvirate 

had  promised  their  cooperation.  There  was  every 
reason  to  hope  for  a  dashing  success;  and  to  make 
assurance  doubly  sure  Schiller  arranged  for  *  cooked  ' 
reviews  of  the  Horen  to  be  paid  for  by  its  publisher. 
But  when  the  time  came  to  launch  his  enterprise  the 
hopeful  editor  found  himself  left  very  much  in  the 
lurch.  *  Lord  help  me,  or  I  perish,'  he  wrote  ruefully 
to  Korner,  on  December  29;  'Goethe  does  not  wish  to 
print  his  *  Elegies  '  in  the  first  number,  Herder  also 
prefers  to  wait,  Fichte  is  busy  with  his  lectures,  Garve 
is  sick,  Engel  lazy  and  the  others  do  not  answer.  * 

And  so  it  came  about  that  the  first  number  of  the 
Horen  was  largely  made  up  of  rather  abstruse  reading. 
Schiller  did  not  fully  realize  that  the  philosophy  on 
which  he  had  been  feeding  with  satisfaction  for  three 
years  was  not  a  palatable  diet  for  the  general  literary 
public.  He  regarded  his  own  *  Letters  on  ^Esthetic 
Education  '  as  a  model  of  lucid  popular  exposition, — 
as  indeed  they  are  in  comparison  with  Kant.  But  the 
number  was  further  freighted  with  a  deep-diving  article 
by  Fichte,  while  Goethe's  poetic  'Epistle'  in  hexam- 
eters, and  the  beginning  of  his  *  Conversations  of 
German  Emigres  ',  though  in  a  lighter  vein,  were  not 
of  thrilling  interest  to  seekers  after  entertainment. 
The  public,  which  had  expected  something  different, 
was  disappointed;  and  when  succeeding  numbers 
brought  further  brain-racking  profundities,  there  was 
a  large  ebullition  of  disgust.  Cotta  began  to  write  of 
complaints  and  cancelled  subscriptions;  and  ere  long 
it  looked  as  if  the  Horen  would  prove  a  big  fiasco. 

Schiller,  who  should  have  been  inured  by  this  time 
to  the  consequences  of  editorial  misjudgment,  was  dis- 


Fortunes  of  the  Horen 


297 


gruntled,  vexed.  He  began  to  feel  that  the  German 
public  was  an  indolent,  long-eared  beast  that  needed 
the  education  of  the  scourge  rather  than  of  aesthetic 
letters.  He  made  some  effort,  it  is  true,  to  enliven  his 
columns  with  more  entertaining  matter,  but  the 
abstruse,  in  prose  and  verse,  continued  to  preponderate. 
By  autumn  he  was  minded  to  give  up  the  whole  under- 
taking, but  was  persuaded  by  Cotta  to  go  on.  Mean- 
while he  had  begun  to  grow  weary  of  theorizing  and 
to  feel  the  homesickness  of  the  poet.  '  Wilhelm 
Meister  ',  as  it  began  to  issue  from  the  press,  excited 
his  unbounded  enthusiasm.  'I  cannot  tell  you',  he 
wrote  to  his  new  friend, 

I  cannot  tell  you  how  painful  it  is  to  me  oftentimes  to  turn 
from  a  work  of  this  character  to  philosophy.  There  everything 
is  so  bright,  so  living,  so  harmonious  and  humanly  true ;  here 
everything  is  so  strict,  so  rigid,  so  very  unnatural.  .  .  .  This 
much  is  certain  :  the  poet  is  the  only  true  human  being,  and  the 
best  philosopher  is  only  a  caricature  beside  him. 

So,  in  the  summer  of  1795,  he  began  once  more  to 
poetize,  —  *  not  venturing  out  upon  the  high  sea  of  in- 
vention ',  as  he  expressed  it,  *  but  keeping  close  to  the 
shore  of  philosophy '.  In  other  words  he  wrote  a 
number  of  philosophic  poems,  partly  for  the  Horen 
and  partly  for  the  new  poetic  *  Almanac  '  that  he  had 
undertaken  to  edit,  in  addition  to  the  Horen,  This 
return  to  poetry  was  a  joy  to  him,  notwithstanding  the 
ill  health  which  confined  him  to  the  house  and  cut  him 
off  from  the  exhilarations  of  the  external  world.  It 
must  never  be  forgotten  that  those  philosophic  poems 
are  the  effusions  of  a  lonely  thinker  who  was  compelled 
to    draw    his    inspiration    from    within,    and   was    not 


298  The  Great  Duumvirate 

entirely  unaware  of  the  fetters  he  had  forged  for  him- 
self by  his  long  addiction  to  philosophy. 

There  was,  however,  one  more  subject,  of  literary 
as  well  as  philosophic  interest,  which  he  was  minded 
to  treat  before  turning  his  back  finally  upon  the  arid 
wastes  of  theory,  —  the  subject  of  realism  versus 
idealism,  or,  as  he  decided  to  phrase  it,  of  naive  and 
sentimental  poetry.  This  essay,  published  in  1796, 
was  briefly  analyzed  in  the  last  chapter.  It  marks  the 
end  of  Schiller's  one-sided  glorification  of  the  Greeks. 
In  more  than  one  passage  he  comes  to  the  rescue  of 
the  modern  poet — the  sentimentalist — as  the  poet  of 
the  infinite,  of  the  ideal.  His  contention  is  that  while 
the  realist  may  be  the  more  admirable  in  a  limited 
sphere,  the  idealist  has  a  larger  sphere,  and  his  perfec- 
tion is  a  higher  thing.  This  attempt  of  Schiller's  to 
describe,  in  a  scientific  spirit,  the  different  kinds  of 
artistic  endowment,  and  to  do  full  justice  to  all,  grew 
naturally  out  of  his  intercourse  with  Goethe.  He 
admired  Goethe  more  and  more.  The  fifth  book  of 
*  Meister  '  produced  in  him  a  '  veritable  intoxication  ' ; 
yet  its  quality  was  strikingly  unlike  that  of  *  Werther  * 
or  '  Iphigenie  ',  and  totally  different  from  anything  that 
he  himself  had  done  or  could  possibly  do.  Perhaps  he 
may  have  been  further  influenced  by  A.  W.  Schlegel's 
sympathetic  papers  upon  Dante,  which  had  been  pub- 
lished in  the  Horen  and  which  revealed  to  him  a  new 
poetic  genius  of  the  highest  order,  yet  not  at  all 
Homeric.  So  he  wrote  his  famous  disquisition, — next 
to  Lessing's  '  Laokoon  *  the  most  thoughtful  and  the 
most  influential  piece  of  criticism  produced  anywhere 
in  the  eighteenth  century, — and  endeavored  to  make 


Goethe  on  Schiller^s  Theory 


299 


it   as    readable   as    possible.      Goethe,  who  read  the 
manuscript  in  November,  1795,  wrote  of  it  thus: 

Since  this  theory  treats  me  so  well,  nothing  is  more  natural 
than  that  I  should  approve  its  principles  and  that  its  conclusions 
should  seem  to  me  correct.  I  should  be  more  distrustful,  how- 
ever, if  I  had  not  at  first  found  myself  in  an  attitude  of  opposi- 
tion to  your  views  ;  for  it  is  not  unknown  to  you  that,  from  an 
excessive  predilection  for  the  ancient  poets,  I  have  often  been 
unjust  to  the  modern.  According  to  your  doctrine  I  can  now 
be  at  one  with  myself,  since  I  no  longer  need  to  contemn  that 
which,  under  certain  conditions,  an  irresistible  impulse  com- 
pelled me  to  produce  ;  and  it  is  a  very  pleasant  feeling  to  be  not 
altogether  dissatisfied  with  one's  self  and  one's  contemporaries. 

Thus  the  two  men  were  drawn  closer  together  in 
mutual  sympathy  and  appreciation,  and  found  in  each 
other  more  and  more  a  bulwark  against  the  whips  and 
scorns  of  hostile  criticism.  Of  such  criticism  there  was 
no  lack.  The  Horen  was  making  enemies  rapidly  and 
had  become,  as  Schiller  put  it,  a  veritable  ecclesia 
militans.  One  Jakob  in  Halle  made  an  assault  upon 
Schiller's  aesthetic  writings.  Dull  old  Nicolai  in  Berlin 
complained  of  the  ravages  of  Kantism  in  German  litera- 
ture. Pious  souls  like  Stolberg  were  scandalized  by 
the  lubricity  of  Goethe's  *  Elegies  '  and  '  Wilhelm 
Meister '.  The  famous  philologist,  Wolf,  pounced 
violently  upon  one  of  Herder's  Homeric  essays. 
Schiller  had  now  fallen  out  with  his  old  friend  Goschen, 
who  was  a  center  of  contemptuous  opposition  at  Leipzig. 
And  Goethe,  too,  had  his  quarrel  with  the  world:  he 
felt  absurdly  sore  over  the  neglect  by  scientific  men  of 
his  optical  theories  in  opposition  to  Newton.  Friendly 
voices  were  scarcely  heard  anywhere.     There  was  little 


300  The  Great  Duumvirate 

opportunity   for   indulging   that   pleasant    emotion    of 
*  being  satisfied  with  one's  contemporaries  '. 

And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  the  two  friends  waxed 
wroth  and  determined  to  strike  back.  At  first  they 
thought  of  a  withering  review  in  the  Horen,  but  this 
idea  was  given  up  in  favor  of  another.  Goethe  had 
taken  a  great  fancy  to  the  ancient  elegiac  meter  and 
for  some  time  past  it  had  been  his  favorite  form  of 
poetic  expression.  Schiller,  originally  a  hater  of  the 
hexameter,  had  caught  the  fever  from  Goethe,  and  used 
the  elegiac  form  in  a  number  of  poems.  In  December, 
1795,  Goethe  suggested  that  they  amuse  themselves 
by  making  epigrams,  in  the  style  of  Martial's  '  Xenia  *, 
upon  the  various  journals  against  which  they  had  a 
grudge,  devoting  a  distich  to  each.  His  plan  was  that 
each  should  make  a  large  number;  then  they  would 
compare,  select  the  best  and  publish  them  in  the 
second  volume  of  the  'Almanac  '.  Schiller  was  cap- 
tivated by  the  idea,  and  *  Xenia  '  now  became  the 
order  of  the  day.  It  was  soon  decided  not  to  restrict 
them  to  the  offensive  journals,  but  to  take  a  shot  wher- 
ever there  was  a  mark.  Both  conspirators  took  great 
delight  in  the  proposed  Teufeleiy — it  would  be  such 
sport  to  stir  up  the  vermin  and  hear  them  buzz.  They 
gave  the  milder  '  Xenia  '  pet  names  such  as  •  jovial 
brethren  ',  '  little  fellows  ',  *  teasing  youngsters  ',  while 
the  harsher  ones  were  likened  to  stinging  insects,  or  to 
the  foxes  of  Samson : 

You  with  the  blazing  tails,  away  to  Philistia,  foxes  ! 
Spoil  the  flourishing  crops,  crops  of  paper  and  ink. 

As  Goethe  was  still  preoccupied  with  '  Wilhelm 
Meister  ',  it  happened  at  first  that  Schiller  was  the  more 


A  Militant  League  Formed  301 

active  in  the  production  of  these  '  kitchen  presents  ' , 
especially  such  as  had  pepper  in  them.  With  the  lapse 
of  time  Goethe's  share  increased.  The  two  were  fre- 
quently together,  for  days  or  weeks  at  a  time,  and  the 
mass  of  Xenia  grew  rapidly.  They  determined  to 
swell  the  number  to  a  thousand  and  to  give  the  collec- 
tion a  sort  of  artistic  completeness ;  to  make  it,  that  is, 
a  sort  of  general  confession  of  faith.  They  agreed 
furthermore  that  they  would  publish  the  epigrams  as  a 
joint  production  and  treat  their  separate  authorship  as 
an  inviolable  secret.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  some  of 
them  really  were  joint  productions.  One  would  sug- 
gest the  idea  or  the  title,  and  the  other  write  the 
verses ;  or  one  write  the  hexameter  and  the  other  the 
pentameter. 

During  the  first  half  of  1796  Schiller  wrote  little  else 
than  Xenia.  By  the  arrival  of  summer  the  joint  output 
amounted  to  nearly  a  thousand,  but  less  than  half  that 
number  found  their  way  into  the  famous  *  Xenia 
Almanac  '  of  1797.  Of  these  the  targets  were  legion 
and  the  merit  various.  Some  few  of  them  were  very 
good,  others  little  short  of  atrocious,  particularly  in  the 
matter  of  form.  As  for  the  general  mass,  their 
piquancy  is  not  so  great  as  to  superinduce  in  the  reader 
of  to-day  a  dangerously  violent  cachinnation.  Neither 
Goethe  nor  Schiller  can  be  credited  with  a  large  vein 
of  sparkling  wit.  Some  of  the  Xenia  are  far-fetched 
and  operose,  while  others  sound  rather  vacuous.  The 
form  of  the  monodistich  was  in  itself  a  safeguard  against 
diffuseness,  but  not  against  the  equal  peril  of  inanity. 

It  would  be  impossible  here  to  do  more  than  glance 
at  the  personalities  involved  in  this  rather  inglorious 


3o«  The  Great  Duumvirate 

squabble.  Many  of  the  Xenia  were  personal  pin- 
pricks. Thus  several  were  directed  against  the  musi- 
cian Reichardt,  who,  as  editor  of  two  journals,  had 
shown  strong  sympathy  with  the  Revolution.  Goethe, 
the  courtier,  and  Schiller,  who  had  no  democratic 
proclivities,  came  to  the  defense  of  the  gentry  thus : 

Aristocratical  dogs  will  growl  at  beggars,  but  mark  you 
How  little  democrat  Spitz  snaps  at  the  stockings  of  silk. 

And  again: 

Gentlemen,  keep  your  seats  !  for  the  curs  but  covet  your  places, 
Elegant  places  to  hear  all  the  other  dogs  bark. 

A  whole  broadside  was  aimed  at  the  garrulous  Nicolai, 
who  deserved  a  better  fate.  As  the  champion  of 
lucidity  zmd  reasonableness  he  stood  in  reality  for  a 
very  good  cause, — no  preachment  more  necessary  in 
Germany  then  or  since.  But  in  his  old  age  he  had 
fallen  a  prey  to  the  cacoethes  scribendi;  he  insisted  upon 
having  his  say  about  everything,  yet  his  stock  of  ideas 
had  long  since  run  out.  So  he  became  the  bogey  of 
the  Weimar-Jena  people.  The  Xenia  assailed  him  with 
frank  brutality,  thus : 

What  is  beyond  your  reach  is  bad,  you  think  in  your  blindness, 
Yet  whatever  you  touch,  that  you  cover  with  dirt. 

Other  objects  of  attack  were  the  brothers  Stolberg,  for 
their  narrow  religiosity;  Friedrich  Schlegel,  for  his 
bumptious  self-conceit;  and  various  small  fry  for  this 
and  that  peccadillo.^ 

*  All  the  extant  Xenia,  nine  hundred  and  twenty-six  in  number, — 
many  of  them  previously  unknown, — were  published  \n  1893  by  Erich 
Schmidt  and  Bernhard  Suphan,  with  copious  introduction  and  notes, 
as  Volume  8  of  the  <'  Schriften  der  Goethe-Gesellschaft "  in  Weimar. 


The  Fusillade  of  the  Xenia 


303 


A  large  part  of  the  epigrams,  however,  were  of  the 
*  tame  '  variety,  that  is,  stingless  outgivings  of  a  jocund 
humor,  or  grave  pronunciamentos  upon  religion,  phi- 
losophy, art  and  so  forth.  The  authors  did  not  wish 
to  appear  before  the  world  as  mere  executioners,  but 
as  men  with  a  positive  creed,  comprising  things  to  be 
loved  as  well  as  things  to  be  hated.  They  pleaded 
for  sanity,  clearness  and  moderation,  and  frowned  upon 
the  fanatics,  hypocrites,  vulgarians  and  cranks.  The 
well-known  distich  entitled  '  My  Creed  '  is  representa- 
tive of  many  which  were  directed  against  the  spirit  of 
blind  partisanship: 

Which  religion  is  mine  ?  Not  one  of  the  many  you  mention. 
« Why ',  do  you  venture  to  ask  ?     Too  much  religion,  I  say. 

Even  virtue  was  to  be  cherished  temperately, — with- 
out too  much  talk  about  it : 

Nothing  so  hateful  as  Vice,  and  all  the  more  to  be  hated. 
Since  because  of  it,  now,  Virtue  is  really  a  need. 

And  so  on  in  endless  variety,  on  all  sorts  of  subjects. 
Further  illustration  shall  be  dispensed  with,  seeing 
that  the  ancient  distich  is  a  poetic  form  for  which  the 
English  language  has,  at  the  best,  but  little  sympathy. 
In  German  it  goes  much  better;  and  for  Schiller  in 
particular,  with  his  natural  love  of  antithesis,  it  proved 
a  convenient  setting  for  his  opinions. 

The  effect  of  the  Xenia  was  to  set  literary  Germany 
agog  with  curiosity.  Two  editions  of  the  *  Almanac  ' 
were  quickly  bought  up  and  a  third  became  necessary. 
There  was  infinite  guessing,  speculating,  interpreting, 
and  among  those  who  had  been  hit  there  was  wailing 


304  The  Great  Duumvirate 

and  gnashing  of  teeth.  A  very  few  friends  of  Goethe 
and  Schiller,  such  as  Korner,  Humboldt  and  Zelter, 
watched  the  commotion  with  solemn  glee.  Others 
were  shocked  or  grieved  at  such  a  mode  of  warfare. 
Wieland  mildly  regretted  that  he  had  come  ofif  well  in 
the  Xenia,  seeing  that  many  other  honest  people  had 
fared  so  badly.  Herder  was  much  more  outspoken  and 
declared  that  he  hated  the  whole  accursed  species. 
The  replies,  protests  and  counter-attacks  were  legion, 
some  in  brutal  belligerent  prose,  others  in  more  or  less 
clever  Anti-xenia.  Some  of  the  latter  were  grossly 
abusive,  and  even  indecent ;  a  few  contained  very  pretty 
home-thrusts,  as  when  in  allusion  to  a  well-known 
poem  of  Schiller's  he  was  advised  to  trouble  himself 
less  about  the  *  Dignity  of  Women  '  and  more  about 
his  own ;  ^  or  where  his  '  Realm  of  Shades  '  was  declared 
to  be  so  very  shadowy  that  one  could  not  see  the 
shades  for  the  shadow.  2  But  the  best  of  all  perhaps 
was  the  oft -quoted  gem: 

In  Weimar  and  in  Jena  they  make  hexameters  like  this, 
But  the  pentameters  are  even  more  excellent.  ^ 

Historians  of  German  literature  are  probably  right 
in  believing  that  the  Xenia  fusillade  produced  on  the 
whole  a  salutary  effect,  although  many  of  the  objects 
of  attack  seem,  at  this  date,  to  have  been  hardly  worth 

*  Lasz  doch  die  Frauen  in  Ruhe  mit  ihrer  WUrde,  und  sorge 
FUr  die  deine,  mein  Freund.     Ihre  bewahren  sie  schon. 

'  Nun,  was  denkt  ihr  vom  Reiche  der  Schatten  ?     Es  schattet  und 
schattet 
Dasz  man  vor  Schatten  umher  nichts  von  den  Schatten  erkennt 

'  In  Weimar  und  in  Jena  macht  man  Hexameter  wie  der; 
Aber  die  Pentameter  sind  doch  noch  excellcnter. 


Effect  of  the  Xenia  305 

the  ammunition.  But  the  explosion  cleared  the  muggy- 
air  like  a  thunder-storm  and  defined  many  an  issue  that 
it  was  well  to  have  defined.  Writers  of  every  ilk  were 
shaken  out  of  their  somnolence  and  compelled  to  look 
in  the  direction  of  Weimar ;  and  when  it  was  a  ques- 
tion of  taking  sides,  where  was  the  force  that  could 
hope  to  make  headway  against  the  combined  strength 
of  Goethe  and  Schiller  ?  The  odds  were  too  great ; 
there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  grumble  a  little  and 
then — acquiesce  in  the  new  leadership.  As  for  the 
Dioscuri,  they  had  the  wisdom  to  see  that  one  sharp 
campaign  was  enough;  that  for  the  rest  they  could 
further  the  good  cause  much  more  effectively  by 
admirable  creation  than  by  peppery  epigrams.  Prod 
a  man  for  his  bad  taste  or  his  foolish  opinions,  and  you 
harden  his  heart  and  provoke  him  to  retaliate ;  give  him 
something  to  admire,  and  you  make  him  a  friend  in 
spite  of  himself. 

In  the  autumn  of  1796  Schiller  addressed  himself  to 
*  Wallenstein  ',  and  from  that  time  on  dramatic  poetry 
continued  to  be  his  chief  concern.  He  led  a  quiet, 
laborious  life,  battling  often  with  disease  and  depres- 
sion, but  sustained  by  high  resolution  and  finding  joy 
enough  in  domestic  affection  and  the  friendship  of 
Goethe.  The  Horen  lasted  three  years  and  then  died 
an  easy  death  by  the  mutual  consent  of  editor  and 
publisher.  Of  the  *  Almanac  '  five  numbers  appeared, 
beginning  with  1796.  In  these  small  annual  volumes 
a  large  part  of  Schiller's  best  poems  were  originally 
published.  His  work  upon  the  *  Almanac  '  was  usually 
done  in  the  summer,  other  activities  being  then  tem- 
porarily laid  aside.     From  the  time  of  his  connection 


$o6  The  Great  Duumvirate 

with  Cotta,  who  took  over  the  *  Almanac  '  after  the 
first  number  had  appeared,  Schiller  usually  had  money 
enough  for  his  needs.  But  his  needs  were  very  modest, 
the  demands,  of  social  life  in  Jena — or  even  in  Weimar 
under  the  fiercer  but  still  not  very  fierce  light  of  the 
court  —  being  extremely  simple.  He  had  not  to 
reckon  with  the  Persian  apparatus  that  disturbed  the 
soul  of  Horace. 

The  further  relations  of  Goethe  and  Schiller,  so  far 
as  they  have  any  important  bearing  upon  the  works  of 
the  latter,  will  be  touched  on  in  subsequent  chapters. 
Here  let  it  be  remarked  in  passing  that  their  friendship 
was  not,  as  it  has  sometimes  been  represented,  a  mere 
relation  of  master  and  disciple.  It  was  rather  a  spiritual 
copartnership  of  equals,  each  recognizing  the  other's 
strength,  respecting  the  other's  individuality  and  eager 
to  profit  by  discussion.  In  the  beginning,  it  is  true, 
Schiller  looked  up  to  Goethe  as  to  a  great  and  wise 
teacher  who  was  to  give  everything  and  receive  little 
or  nothing  in  return.  Every  one  will  recall  his  saying 
that  he  was  a  mere  poetic  scalawag  in  comparison  with 
Goethe.  But  it  is  worth  remembering  that  this  remark 
was  made  after  the  reading  of  '  Wilhelm  Meister  ', — a 
work  which,  notwithstanding  his  admiration,  he  criti- 
cised very  sharply.  And  the  justice  of  his  criticism  was 
admitted  by  Goethe ;  whereupon  Schiller  drily  observed 
in  a  letter  to  Korner  that  Goethe  was  a  man  who  could 
be  told  a  great  deal  of  truth.  As  time  passed,  Schiller 
dropped  the  tone  of  humble  docility  and  became  more 
and  more  independent.  If  he  deferred  to  the  superior 
wisdom  of  Goethe  in  dealing  with  the  plastic  arts  and 
with  natural  science,  there  were  other  matters, — phi- 


Further  Relations  of  Goethe  and  Schiller    307 

losophy,  poetic  theory  and  the  dramatic  art, — upon 
which  he  felt  that  he  could  speak  as  one  having 
authority.  And  his  authority  was  respected  by  Goethe, 
especially  after  the  completion  of  '  Wallenstein '. 
Goethe  saw  that  Schiller,  along  with  his  poetic  gift, 
possessed  a  practical  dramatic  talent, — an  eye  for  effect 
and  a  power  of  appealing  to  the  general  heart, — such 
as  he,  Goethe,  could  by  no  means  claim  for  himself. 
And  so  the  nominal  director  of  the  Weimar  theater 
leaned  heavily  upon  his  friend  and  looked  to  him  as 
the  best  hope  of  the  German  drama. 


CHAPTER   XV 
Xater  poems 

So  fiihrt  zu  seiner  Jugend  Hiitten, 
Zu  seiner  Unschuld  reinem  Gliick, 
Vom  fernen  Ausland  fremder  Sitten 
Den  Fliichtling  der   Gesang  zuriick, 
In  der  Natur  getreuen  Armen 
Von  kalten  Regeln  zu  erwarmen. 

♦  The  Power  of  Song '. 

The  dominant  note  of  Schiller's  later  poetry  is  in- 
tellectual seriousness ;  wherefore,  if  there  be  those  for 
whom  intellectual  seriousness  is  not  a  quality  of  poetry 
at  all,  for  them  he  has  not  written.  The  element  of 
reflection  is  nearly  always  prominent  in  his  verse, 
though  there  are  a  few  of  his  poems,  notably  his  best 
ballads,  in  which  it  is  conspicuously  lacking.  What 
we  usually  hear  is  the  man  of  culture  commenting  upon 
life,  and  everywhere  he  makes  his  appeal  to  universal 
sentiments.  The  spontaneity,  or  seeming  spontaneity, 
of  the  great  lyrists  was  no  part  of  his  gift.  To  catch 
a  fleeting  fancy,  or  some  eccentricity  of  private  emotion, 
and  fix  it  in  musical  verse  of  a  vague  suggestiveness, 
was  not  in  his  line.  If  he  had  ever,  like  Heine,  im- 
agined himself  joining  his  sweetheart  in  the  grave  and 
defying  the  resurrection  in  a  rapturous  embrace,  he 
would  probably  have  thought  it  beneath  his  dignity  to 

308 


Character  of  Schiller^s  Poetry  309 

versify  the  whimsy.  Of  course  his  verse  is  self-revela- 
tion, without  which  poetry  cannot  be;  but  it  is  the 
revelation  of  a  soul  dwelling  habitually  in  the  upper 
altitudes  of  thought  and  emotion,  and  always  assuming 
that  fellow-mortals  who  care  for  poetry  at  all  will  be 
capable  of  a  serious  joy  in  the  things  of  the  mind. 

One  may  say  that  his  art  as  a  poet  consists  not  so 
much  in  the  direct  expression  of  feeling  in  sensuous  and 
passionate  language,  as  in  the  transfiguration  of  thought 
by  means  of  impassioned  imagery.  In  his  poems  as 
elsewhere  he  is  a  good  deal  of  a  rhetorician,  but  he  is 
never  insincere.  His  verse  came  from  the  heart,  only 
it  was  the  expression  of  character  and  convictions 
rather  than  of  moods  and  fancies.  It  seems  intended 
to  edify  rather  than  to  portray;  to  impress  rather  than 
to  delight.  Some  of  it,  too,  is  occupied  with  ideal 
sentiments  so  abstract  and  sublimated  as  to  possess  but 
languid  interest  for  normally  constituted  lovers  of 
poetry.  For  a  while,  at  least,  after  his  return  to 
poetry,  he  may  fairly  be  said  to  have  cared  a  little  too 
much  for  the  white  radiance  of  eternity,  and  not  quite 
enough  for  the  colored  reflection  beneath  the  dome.^ 

This  last  observation  has  in  view  more  particularly 
the  poems  he  wrote  in  the  year  1795,  while  still 
'  hugging  the  shore  of  philosophy  *.  Take  for  example 
*  The  Veiled  Image  at  Sais  ',  which  tells  in  rather 
prosaic  pentameters  of  an  ardent  young  truth-seeker 
who  is  escorted  by  an  Egyptian  hierophant  to  a  veiled 

*  "  The  One  remains,  the  many  change  and  pass, 

Heaven's  light  forever  shines,  earth's  shadows  fly  ; 
Life,  like  a  dome  of  many-colored  glass, 
Stains  the  white  radiance  of  Eternity." 

— SAei/ry's  '^Adonais". 


3IO  Later  Poems 

statue  and  told  that  whoso  lifts  the  veil  shall  see  the 
Truth.  At  the  same  time  he  is  warned  that  the  Veil 
must  not  be  lifted  save  by  the  consecrated  hand  of  the 
priest  himself.  Moved  by  a  curiosity  which  can  hardly 
seem  anything  but  laudable, — unless  one  is  prepared 
to  take  the  side  of  the  sacerdotal  humbug, — the  young 
man  returns  in  the  night  and  raises  the  veil.  In  the 
morning  he  is  found  pale  and  unconscious  at  the  foot 
of  the  statue.  Soon  afterwards  he  dies,  leaving  to 
mankind  the  message: 

Woe  unto  him  who  seeks  the  Truth  through  Guilt. 

This  has  an  unctuous  sound,  and  one  gets  a  vague  im- 
pression that  the  old  story  has  been  dressed  up  for  the 
sake  of  some  modern  application.  One  is  piqued  to 
reflect  upon  it;  but  the  more  one  reflects  the  more 
clearly  one  sees  that  there  is  no  real  instruction  in  it. 
But  if  there  is  no  instruction,  there  is  nothing  at  all ; 
since  the  mysticism  is  of  a  kind  that  appeals  solely  to 
the  intellect. 

Far  more  interesting  is  the  poem  which  was  at  first 
called  *  The  Realm  of  Shades  '  and  later  *  The  Ideal 
and  Life  ', — a  difficult  production,  which  resembles 
*  The  Artists  '  in  its  suggestion  of  a  voyage  through 
the  imponderable  ether.  We  begin  with  the  blessed 
gods  in  Olympus  and  end  with  the  apotheosis  of  Her- 
cules; and  the  intervening  stretch  is  like  the  vasty 
realm  of  the  Mothers  in  *  Faust '.  The  poem  is  intel- 
lectual, in  the  sense  that  its  theme  is  a  concept  of  the 
mind,  and  its  structure  logical  throughout;  yet  every 
strophe  is  surcharged  with  feeling,  and  the  diction  pre- 
sents a  marvelous  wealth   of  imagery.      It  must  be 


The  Ideal  and  Life  311 

conquered  by  study  before  it  can  yield  any  great 
pleasure;  but  the  conquest  once  made,  one  finds  a 
noble  delight  in  the  gorgeous  coloring  with  which 
Schiller  invests  his  idealistic  rainbow  in  the  clouds. 
Good    critics,   favorable    to    Schiller's    genius,   regard 

*  The  Ideal  and  Life  '  as  the  greatest  of  his  philosophic 
poems  and  the  most  characteristic  expression  of  his 
nature.  He  himself  felt  a  sort  of  reverence  for  it. 
'  When  you  receive  this  letter  ',  he  wrote  to  Humboldt, 

*  put  away  everything  that  is  profane  and  read  this 
poem    in    solemn    quiet.'       And    Humboldt    replied: 

*  How  shall  I  thank  you  for  the  indescribable  pleasure 
that  your  poem  has  given  me  ?  Since  the  day  on 
which  I  received  it,  it  has  in  the  truest  sense  possessed 
me ;  I  have  read  nothing  else,  have  scarcely  thought 
of  anything  else. ' 

The  general  drift  of  the  wonderfully  pregnant  verses 

is  that  man  attains  peace  only  by  renouncing  the  things 

of  sense  and  living  in  the  realm  of  shades,  that  is, 

among  eternal  ideals.      Here  he  is  free — like  the  gods. 

The  Weavers  of  the  Web — the  Fates — but  sway 

The  matter  and  the  things  of  clay  ; 

Safe  from  each  change  that  Time  to  Matter  gives, 
Nature's  blest  playmate,  free  at  will  to  stray 
With  Gods  a  god,  amidst  the  fields  of  Day, 

The  Form,  the  Archetype,  serenely  lives. 
Wouldst  thou  soar  heavenward  on  its  joyous  wing  ? 

Cast  from  thee  Earth,  the  bitter  and  the  real, 
High  from  this  cramped  and  dungeon  being,  spring 
Into  the  Realm  of  the  Ideal.  ^ 

Throughout  the  poem  '  Beauty  '  is  put  for  *  the  Ideal ' ; 
and  we  get  a  reflex  of  the  philosophic  doctrine  that 

*  Bulwer's  Translation. 


312  Later  Poems 

only  the  aesthetic  faculty  can  resolve  the  eternal  con- 
flict between  the  sensuous  and  the  rational  man.  Life 
is  and  must  be  struggle,  that  being  its  very  essence ; 
but  by  taking  refuge  in  the  Realm  of  the  Ideal,  man 
anticipates  his  apotheosis.  There  he  escapes  from  the 
tyranny  of  the  flesh  and  the  bondage  of  nature's  law. 
The  misery  of  struggle  and  defeat  no  longer  vexes  him. 
The  warring  forces  are  reconciled  and  he  sees  their 
conflict  under  the  aspect  of  eternal  beauty.  Thus,  like 
the  new-born  god,  Alcides,  taking  leave  of  the  terres- 
trial battle-ground,  he  mounts  into  heaven,  while  the 
nightmare  of  the  earthly  life  *  sinks  and  sinks  and 
sinks  '. 

Behold  him  spring 
Blithe  in  the  pride  of  the  unwonted  wing, 

And  the  dull  matter  that  confined  before 
Sinks  downward,  downward,  downward,  as  a  dream  ! 

Olympian  hymns  receive  the  escaping  soul, 
And  smiling  Hebe,  from  the  ambrosial  stream, 

Fills  for  a  God  the  bowl.' 

All  this  may  seem,  at  first  blush,  to  attach  excessive 
importance  to  the  attainment  of  inward  peace  and 
harmony, — as  if  one's  private  comfort  were  the  greatest 
thing  in  life.  It  seems  to  recommend  a  quietistic,  con- 
templative life;  for  how  else  shall  one  escape  from  the 
actual  into  the  ideal }  Nevertheless  it  would  be  a  great 
mistake  to  read  into  the  poem  anything  like  a  recom- 
mendation of  quietism.  The  ultimate  goal  is  described 
in  terms  which  suggest  now  the  mythology  of  Homer, 
now  the  Platonic  realm  of  ideals,  and  again  the  Chris- 
tian  heaven;    but   however   the   blessed    existence  is 

*  Bulwer's  Translation. 


Idealism  of  Goethe  and  Schiller         313 

imaged,  it  is  always  thought  of  as  attainable  only- 
through  a  strenuous  grapple  with  the  realities  of  this 
life.  Thus  the  essential  spirit  of  the  poem  is  the  spirit 
of  energetic,  hopeful  endeavor.  Its  doctrine  is,  to 
quote  the  words  of  Kuno  Francke,  that  '  *  only  through 
work  are  we  delivered  from  the  slavery  of  the  senses  ' ' ; 
that  * '  the  very  trials  and  sufferings  of  mankind  bring 
out  its  divine  nature  and  insure  its  ultimate  transition 
to  an  existence  of  ideal  harmony  and  beauty  ".^ 

The  doctrine,  in  its  essence,  was  dear  to  Goethe,  as 
well  as  to  Schiller,  and  takes  us  into  the  holy-of-holies 
of  their  joint  philosophy.  What  else  did  Goethe  mean 
by  his  oft-reiterated  preachment  of  renunciation,  and 
by  his  well-known  verses  about  *  weaning  oneself  from 
the  half  and  living  resolutely  in  the  whole,  the  good  and 
the  beautiful  '  ?  In  his  excellent  book  upon  Diderot 
Mr.  John  Morley  speaks  somewhere  of  * '  that  affecta- 
tion of  culture  with  which  the  great  Goethe  infected 
part  of  the  world  ".  Let  it  not  be  forgotten,  however, 
in  our  latter-day  contempt  of  culture,  that  the  Weimar 
poets  were  great  workers,  and  also,  in  their  way,  great 
fighters.  They  did  not  turn  their  attention — at  least 
not  directly — to  the  crushing  of  the  Infamous,  nor  to 
any  battle  against  social  or  political  wrong.  They 
fought  rather  for  sanity,  for  good  art,  for  philosophy ; 
for  those  things  which  go  to  enrich  and  broaden  the 
life  of  the  individual.  It  was  a  good  fight, — the  best 
which,  at  their  time,  with  their  gifts,  they  could  possi- 
bly have  engaged  in. 

Schiller's  fervid  verses,  recommending  an  escape 
from  the  bondage  of  sense  to  the  free  realm  of  the 

^  "Social  Forces  in  German  Literature  ",  p.  376. 


514  Later  Poems 

mind,  correspond  of  course  to  nothing  that  is  humanly 
feasible.  The  shackles  of  the  flesh  are  upon  us  and 
there  is  no  way  to  get  rid  of  them.  It  is  only  an  ideal, 
a  poet's  dream.  Nevertheless  the  subject  has  a  prac- 
tical aspect  which  is  definable  in  plain  prose.  It  is 
found  in  the  following  passage  from  Goethe: 

We  put  one  passion  in  place  of  another  ;  employments,  dilet- 
tantisms, amusements,  hobbies, — we  try  them  all  through  to  the 
end  only  to  cry  out  at  last  that  all  is  vanity.  No  one  is  horrified 
at  this  false,  this  blasphemous  saying ;  indeed  it  is  thought  to  be 
wise  and  irrefutable.  But  there  are  a  few  persons  who,  antici- 
pating such  intolerable  feelings,  in  order  to  avoid  all  partial 
resignations,  resign  themselves  universally  once  for  all.  Such 
persons  convince  themselves  with  regard  to  the  eternal,  neces- 
sary, law-governed  order  of  things,  and  seek  to  acquire  ideas 
which  are  indestructible  and  are  only  confirmed  by  the  contem- 
plation of  that  which  is  transient' 

Other  poems  of  the  year  1 795  were  *  The  Partition 
of  the  Earth  ' ,  wherein  Zeus  takes  pity  on  the  portion- 
less poet  by  giving  him  a  perpetual  entree  to  the 
celestial  court ;  the  mildly  humorous  *  Deeds  of  the 
Philosopher  ' ,  a  bit  of  persiflage  on  the  art  of  proving 
what  everybody  knows,  and  also  several  pieces  in  the 
elegiac  form. 

Of  these  last  the  weightiest  is  the  one  at  first  called 
simply  'Elegy',  and  later  'The  Walk'.  Just  as 
Goethe  had  used  the  elegiac  meter  for  his  reminiscences 
of  Rome,  so  Schiller  employs  it  for  his  impressions  of 
such  small  travel  as  fate  permitted  him, — a  summer- 
time walk  in  field  or  forest.  The  verses  will  bear 
comparison   very   well   with   the    'Roman    Elegies*. 

*  "Dichtung  und  Wahrheit",  sechzehntes  Buch. 


The  Walk  315 

Instead  of  paintings,  statues,  marble  palaces  and  the 
troublesome  Amor,  we  have  the  aspects  of  nature, 
— the  music  of  bird  and  bee,  and  the  toil  of  the  hus- 
bandman *  not  yet  awakened  to  freedom  ' .  As  our 
sauntering  poet  comes  in  sight  of  a  city, — the  locus  of 
the  poem  is  the  neighborhood  of  Jena,  with  reminiscent 
and  imaginative  touches  here  and  there, — he  is  moved 
to  reflections  upon  the  more  eager  life  of  the  towns- 
people. This  leads  to  a  retrospective  survey  of  the 
origins  of  civilization, — of  agriculture,  the  mechanical 
crafts,  trade,  letters,  art,  science  and  the  social  senti- 
ments. Then  the  darker  side  of  the  picture  is  devel- 
oped,— the  evils,  inhumanities,  corruptions  and  vices 
of  civilized  life.  For  some  time  the  wanderer  pursues 
his  way  completely  lost  in  these  sad  contemplations ; 
then  suddenly  he  returns  to  the  present  and  finds 
himself  alone  with  nature,  from  whose  '  pure  altar  '  he 
receives  back  again  the  joyousness  of  youth.  Thus  the 
poem  ends,  like  'The  Ideal  and  Life',  upon  an  idyllic 
note;  the  one  pointing  forward,  beyond  the  warfare  of 
life,  to  an  unimaginable  Elysium,  the  other  pointing 
backward  to  a  happy  golden  age  of  which  Mother 
Nature  is  the  living  reminder: 

Ever  the  will  of  man  is  changing  the  rule  and  the  purpose, 

Ever  the  genius  of  life  alters  the  form  of  his  deed. 
But  in  eternal  youth,  in  ever  varying  beauty, 

Thou,  O  Mother  of  Men,  keepest  the  ancient  law.  .  .  . 

Under  the  selfsame  blue,  over  the  same  old  green. 
Wander  together  the  near,  and  wander  the  far-away  races, 

And  old  Homer's  sun,  lo!  it  shines  on  us  now. 

The  inner  form  of  '  The  Walk  ' — loving  contempla- 
tion of  nature,  giving  rise  to  general  reflections  upon 


3i6  Later  Poems 

life — is  essentially  Goethean;  one  may  safely  regard 
it  as  a  conscious  experiment  in  Goethe's  manner.  As 
such  it  is  very  good  indeed,  although  its  exotic  meter 
has  stood  in  the  way  of  its  attaining  the  popularity  of 
the  ballads  and  the  *  Song  of  the  Bell '.  ♦  The  Walk  ' 
and  *  The  Ideal  and  Life  '  are  the  noblest  gifts  of 
Schiller's  didactic  muse. 

Coming  now  to  the  poems  of  the  year  1796,  and 
regarding  them  first  in  a  general  way  as  a  group  by 
themselves,  we  can  observe  that  Schiller  has  made 
progress  in  weaning  himself  from  abstract  modes  of 
thought.  The  stanzas  entitled  '  The  Power  of  Song  ' 
tell  of  a  fugitive  in  strange  lands  lured  back  to  warm 
himself  in  the  embrace  of  nature  from  the  chill  of  '  cold 
rules '.  Another  reminds  the  metaphysician,  who 
boasts  of  the  great  height  to  which  he  has  climbed,  that 
his  altitude  can  do  nothing  for  him  except  give  him  a 
view  of  the  valley  below.  '  Pegasus  in  Harness  '  is  a 
humorous  apologue  intended  to  enforce  the  truth  that 
the  winged  horse  is  of  no  use  for  drudgery  and  exhibits 
his  proper  mettle  only  when  ridden  by  a  poet.  Of 
much  greater  interest  than  any  of  these  is  '  The 
Ideals  '.  Here  the  middle-aged  poet  recalls  the  fervid 
dreams  of  his  youth  and  thinks  of  them  under  the  image 
of  airy  sprites  attending  his  rushing  chariot,  like  the 
Hours  in  Guido's  picture.  Midway  in  his  course  he 
finds  that  they  have  all  dropped  away,  save  Friendship 
and  Work, — Friendship  that  lovingly  shares  the  bur- 
dens of  life,  and  Work  that  only  brings  grains  of  sand 
one  by  one  to  the  Builder, 

Yet  from  the  debt-book  of  the  ages 
Erases  minutes,  days  and  years. 


Dignity  of  Women  317 

Most  noteworthy  in  this  group,  however,  is  unques- 
tionably that  famous  tribute  to  womanhood  which 
goes  by  the  name  of  '  Dignity  of  Women  '.  Looked 
at  with  the  scientific  eye  it  is  sheer  gyneolatry, — the 
chivalrous  sentiment  inflated  with  poetic  wind,  like  a 
bubble,  to  the  utmost  possible  degree  of  iridescent 
tenuity.  Man  is  depicted  as  a  wild  creature,  ever 
tossing  on  the  sea  of  passion,  or  chasing  phantoms  in 
the  empyrean.  Reckless  and  vehement,  he  lives  by 
the  law  of  force,  or,  at  the  best,  by  the  law  of  reason 
and  logic.  Woman,  on  the  other  hand,  follows  the 
better  light  of  feeling  and  gently  lures  the  daring 
wanderer  back  to  present  realities.  In  her  little  sphere 
of  intuition  she  is  richer  and  freer  than  he  in  his 
boundless  kingdom  of  thought  and  imagination.  Her 
sovereignty  is  that  of  a  child  or  an  angel,  making 
always  for  peace,  gentleness  and  goodness. — All  of 
which  is  extremely  interesting  as  a  classical  expression 
of  an  old-fashioned  sentiment  that  good  men  used  once 
to  believe  in.  Schiller  believed  in  it  ardently,  and  one 
loves  him  none  the  less  for  that.  The  most  cogent 
objection  to  his  verses  is  their  generality.  For  *  man  * 
it  is  necessary  to  read  '  Friedrich  Schiller  ',  and  for 
*  woman  ',  his  wife. 

In  its  metrical  form  the  poem  attempts  to  express 
the  lovableness  of  the  *  eternal-womanly  '  by  means 
of  a  lightly  flowing  dactylic  measure,  while  a  heavier 
trochaic  cadence  is  employed  to  denote  the  nature  of 
man: 

Ehret  die  Frauen  !     Sie  flechten  und  weben 
Himmlische  Rosen  ins  irdische  Leben, 
Flechten  der  Liebe  begliickendes  Band.  .  ,  , 


5*B  Later  Poems 

Ewig  aus  der  Wahrheit  Schranken 
Schweift  des  Mannes  wilde  Kraft, 
Und  die  irren  Tritte  wanken 
Auf  dem  Meer  der  Leidenschaft.* 

Such  a  scheme,  in  the  hands  of  a  Schiller,  leads  in- 
evitably to  a  crescendo  of  rhetorical  contrasts,  which  in 
the  end  sound  somewhat  flighty  and  forced.  The 
poem  was  an  object  of  ridicule  to  the  Romanticists, 
and  the  elder  Schlegel  wrote  a  saucy  parody  of  the 
first  two  strophes. 2 

The  few  poems  that  found  a  place  in  the  *  Almanac  ' 
of  1797,  along  with  the  luxuriant  crop  of  Xenia,  are 
relatively  unimportant.  The  difference  between  the 
sexes,  a  subject  which  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt  had 
discussed  in  the  Horen^  was  expounded  anew  by  Schiller 
in  distichs.  It  is  very  much  the  same  story  as  the 
*  Dignity  of  Women  ' ,  the  distich  form  lending  itself 
beautifully  to  those  antitheses  which  were  Schiller's 
delight.  Then  there  was  a  poetic  riddle,  called  *  The 
Maiden  from  Afar  ', — a  slight  affair,  but  pretty  in  its 

^  Bulwer  translates  the  lines,  somewhat  lamely,  thus  ; 
Honour  to  Woman !     To  her  it  is  given 
To  garden  the  earth  with  the  roses  of  Heaven ! 
All  blessed,  she  linketh  the  Loves  in  their  choir.  .  .  . 
From  the  bounds  of  Truth  careering, 
Man's  strong  spirit  wildly  sweeps, 
With  each  hasty  impulse  veering 
Down  to  Passion's  troubled  deeps. 
*  Ehret  die  Frauen  !     Sie  stricken  die  StrUmpfe, 
WoUig  und  warm,  zu  durchwaten  die  Stimpfe, 
Flicken  zerriss'ne  Pantalons  aus.  .  .  . 
Doch  der  Mann,  der  tolpelhafte, 
Find't  am  Zarten  nicht  Geschmack ; 
Zum  gegohmen  Gerstensafte 
Raucht  er  immerfort  Taback. 


The  Eleusinian  Festival 


319 


way;  a  'Lament  of  Ceres',  in  trochaic  tetrameters, 
and  a  '  Dithyramb  ' ,  wherein  a  poet  is  visited  by  all  the 
Olympian  gods  and  cheered  with  a  draught  of  Hebe's 
joy-giving  nectar.  These  classicizing  poems,  which 
purport  to  express  modern  feeling  in  the  terms  of  Greek 
mythology,  sound  now  a  little  hollow  and  conventional. 
The  vein  had  been  worked  to  excess  even  in  Schiller's 
day,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  Romanticists  pined 
for  something  new.  The  best  of  them  all  is  '  The 
Eleusinian  Festival  ',  called  originally  *  Song  of  the 
Citizen  ',  in  which  Schiller  returns  to  his  favorite  theme 
— the  origin  and  progress  of  civilized  society.  The 
climactic  thought  of  the  twenty-seven  sonorous  stanzas 
is  contained  in  the  Kantian  oracle  of  Ceres : 

Freiheit  liebt  das  Tier  der  Wiiste, 
Frei  im  Ather  herrscht  der  Gott, 
Ihrer  Brust  gewalt'ge  Liiste 
Zahmet  das  Naturgebot ; 
Doch  der  Mensch,  in  ihrer  Mitte, 
Soil  sich  an  den  Menschen  reihn, 
Und  allein  durch  seine  Sitte 
Kann  er  frei  und  machtig  sein.* 

In  the  spring  of  the  year  1797,  as  '  Hermann  and 
Dorothea  '  was  approaching  completion,  Goethe  and 
Schiller  were  led  to  an  interchange  of  views  concerning 

1  <'  In  the  waste  the  Beast  is  free, 
And  the  God  upon  his  throne  I 
Unto  each  the  curb  must  be 
But  the  nature  each  doth  own. 
Yet  the  Man — betwixt  the  two — 
Must  to  man  allied  belong  ; 
Only  law  and  Custom  thro' 
Is  the  Mortal  free  and  strong. " 

— Bu/wer's  Translation. 


320  Later  Poems 

the  distinctive  qualities  of  epic  poetry.  Their  discus-  . 
sion  begot  an  interest  in  the  kindred  type  of  the  ballad, 
which  may  be  regarded  as  a  miniature  epic  in  a  lyrical 
form.  The  result  was  that  both  poets  began  to  make 
ballads  for  the  next  year's  '  Almanac  *.  Schiller  con- 
tributed five:  '  The  Diver  ',  '  The  Ring  of  Polycrates  ', 

*  The  Cranes  of  Ibycus  ',  *  The  Errand  at  the  Furnace  * 
and  *  The  Knight  of  Toggenburg '.  In  subsequent 
years  he  wrote  three  others :  *  The  Pledge  ',  *  Hero  and 
Leander  '  and  *  The  Count  of  Hapsburg  '.  To  these 
maybe  added  'The  Glove',  which  was  not  called  a 
ballad  because  not  written  in  uniform  stanzas,  and 
'The  Fight  with    the  Dragon',   which  was    called  a 

*  romanza ' . 

These  poems,  taken  as  a  whole,  owe  nothing  what- 
ever to  the  folk-song.  The  popular  ballad,  which  had 
once  fascinated  Goethe  and  Herder  and  Burger,  and 
the  Gottingen  poets  generally,  seems  never  to  have 
appealed  to  Schiller  in  any  notable  degree.  If  we 
except  'The  Count  of  Hapsburg',  his  ballad  themes 
are  all  exotic,  that  is,  they  do  not  deal  with  German 
legend  or  history  or  superstition.  The  suggestions 
came  generally  from  out-of-the-way  reading,  and  in 
one  or  two  cases  his  exact  source  has  not  been  cer- 
tainly identified.  The  tales  have  no  odor  of  the  soil, 
no  local  color.  They  make  no  use  of  the  supernatural, 
the  gruesome  or  the  uncanny.  They  are  not  wild 
roses,  but  jaqueminots  cultivated  with  an  aesthetic  end 
in  view.  Their  aroma  is  distinctly  literary,  and  they 
are  all  eminently  serious.  Not  a  smile  is  provided  for 
in  the  whole  list.  There  is  no  element  of  mystery 
about  them.     The  passions  and  sentiments  illustrated 


The  Ballads 


321 


are  of  the  universal  kind.  And  just  as  vague,  uncanny 
and  bizarre  feelings  play  no  part,  so  there  is  no  resort 
to  verbal  tricks,  such  as  meaningless  repetitions,  or 
onomatopoetic  jingles.  The  language  is  dignified  and 
classical.  Their  great  merit  is  the  vivid  and  strong 
imaginative  coloring  with  which  situations  and  actions 
are  portrayed.  While  in  no  sense  folk-songs,  they  have 
always  been  great  favorites  with  the  German  people. 

In  '  The  Diver  '  the  stress  falls  upon  the  portraiture 
of  the  raging  deep  and  its  awful  horrors.  It  is  a 
rhetorical  Prachtstucky  which  has  done  good  service 
to  many  an  elocutionist  and  declaiming  schoolboy. 
Schiller  himself  had  never  seen  the  sea,  nor  any  body 
of  water  remotely  resembling  the  Charybdis  of  the 
poem.  Observation,  as  he  humbly  confessed,  had 
given  him  nothing  more  awesome  than  a  mill-dam, — 
the  rest  was  Homeric  and  imaginative;  wherefore  it 
no  doubt  gratified  him  when  Goethe  reported  from 
Schaffhausen,  after  a  visit  to  the  cataract,  that  the  line 

Und  es  wallet,  und  siedet,  und  brauset,  und  zischt, 

was  scientifically  correct.  *  The  Glove  '  merely  versi- 
fies a  simple  incident  of  a  brave  knight  whose  courage 
is  put  to  an  inhuman  test  by  his  lady-love ;  he  brings 
her  glove  from  among  the  'horrible  cats',  and  then 
contemptuously  cuts  her  acquaintance.  In  these  two, 
the  earliest  of  the  ballads,  description  of  the  situation 
preponderates  over  the  epic  element,  and  there  is  no 
*  idea '  except  to  narrate  an  extraordinarily  brave 
action.  In  '  The  Ring  of  Polycrates  '  one  can  discern 
progress  in  the  mastery  of  the  ballad  form,  though  the 
subject  was  none  of  the  best.     Based  upon  a  story  in 


322  Later  Poems 

Herodotus,  it  is  a  poetic  setting  of  the  ancient  idea  that 
excessive  good  fortune  provokes  the  anger  of  the  gods 
and  portends  disaster.  Strangely  enough  Schiller's 
poem  breaks  off  with  the  recovery  of  the  ring  from  the 
fish's  belly,  and  the  consequent  warning  and  departure 
of  the  Egyptian  guest.  One  would  expect  an  addi- 
tional stanza  or  two,  showing  how  the  forebodings  of 
Amasis  were  presently  realized. 

Much  better  than  any  of  the  foregoing  is  '  The 
Cranes  of  Ibycus  '.  In  the  composition  of  this  ballad 
Goethe  took  a  deep  interest,  giving  several  suggestions 
which  were  adopted  by  Schiller  to  the  great  advantage 
of  the  poem.  The  Greek  legend  does  not  explain,  or 
explains  variously,  just  why  the  murderers  in  the  theater 
call  out  the  name  of  Ibycus  when  they  see  the  cranes 
flying  over.  Schiller  supposes  that  the  spectacle  just 
then  going  on  was  a  solemn  chorus  of  the  Eumenides. 
Thus  the  unaccountable  exclamation  of  the  murderers 
is  connected  with  the  mysterious  power  of  the  avenging 
Furies.  It  is  this  use  of  the  nemesis  idea  that  makes 
the  merit  of  the  ballad. 

*  The  Knight  of  Toggenburg  *  is  a  sentimental  tale 
of  romantic  love,  while  *  The  Pledge  ' — a  captivating 
and  powerful  version  of  the  Damon  and  Pythias  story 
— is  a  heroic  ballad  of  loyal  friendship.  *  The  Errand 
at  the  Furnace  ',  wherein  a  spiteful  tale-bearer  meets 
the  horrible  fate  he  has  prepared  for  the  innocent  and 
devout  Fridolin, — may  be  styled  a  ballad  of  pious 
edification.  Here,  as  a  critic  observes,  Schiller  pur- 
posely essays  a  tone  of  childlike  naivete  which  was 
foreign  to  his  nature.^     '  The  Battle  with  the  Dragon  * 

'  Otto  Hamack,  **  Schiller",  page  274. 


Attitude  toward  the  Present  323 

has  for  its  theme  the  moral  majesty  of  self-conquest. 
With  '  The  Cranes  of  Ibycus  '  and  '  The  Pledge  ' ,  it 
forms  a  triad  which  may  be  regarded  as  the  choicest 
fruitage  of  Schiller's  interest  in  the  ballad.  The  later 
ones,  *  The  Count  of  Hapsburg '  and  '  Hero  and 
Leander  ',  are  no  less  finished  in  the  matter  of  form, 
but  have  more  of  a  lyric  tinge. 

We  see  that  as  a  balladist  Schiller  got  his  inspiration 
mainly  from  two  sources:  the  traditions  of  Greek 
antiquity  and  the  traditions  of  chivalrous  romance. 
He  dwelt  habitually  in  the  idealisms  of  the  past,  and 
his  controlling  purpose  was  to  make  these  idealisms 
live  again  in  stirring  poetic  pictures.  The  present 
time,  with  its  fierce  national  conflicts,  the  larger  mean- 
ing of  which  was  not  yet  apparent,  seemed  to  him 
barbarous  and  depressing.  In  the  prologue  to  *  Wal- 
lenstein  ',  it  is  true,  he  was  able  to  survey  the  situation 
with  a  calm  artistic  eye  and  to  see  in  the  *  solemn  close 
of  the  century  '  a  period  in  which  '  reality  is  becoming 
poetry  '.  But  this  is  an  isolated  deliverance.  His 
habitual  mood  was  one  of  aversion,  from  which  he 
sought  relief  by  an  escape  into  the  kingdom  of  the 
mind.  Thus,  in  some  stanzas  on  the  opening  of  the 
new  century,  he  laments  that  the  English-French  war 
has  overspread  sea  and  land  and  left  no  place  on  earth 
for  '  ten  happy  mortals  '.  Then  he  bids  the  friend  to 
whom  the  verses  are  addressed  take  refuge  in  the  holy 
temple  of  the  heart,  seeing  that  Freedom  and  Beauty 
dwell  only  in  dreamland.  A  similar  sentiment  finds 
expression  in  '  The  Words  of  Illusion ',  published  in 
1 801,  as  a  sort  of  pendant  to  the  earlier  *  Words  of 
Faith  '.     The  words  of  faith  are  Freedom,  Virtue  and 


324  Later  Poems 

God.  Men  are  exhorted  to  cling  steadfastly  to  these 
eternal  verities,  whereof  only  the  heart  gives  knowl- 
edge. The  other  poem  is  directed  against  the  super- 
stition of  believing  in  a  golden  age,  or  in  any  external 
realization  of  the  right,  the  good  and  the  true.  The 
final  stanza  runs : 

And  so,  noble  soul,  forget  not  the  law, 

And  to  the  true  faith  be  leal ; 
What  ear  never  heard  and  eye  never  saw. 

The  Beautiful,  the  True,  they  are  real. 
Look  not  without,  as  the  fool  may  do  ; 
It  is  in  thee  and  ever  created  anew. 

These  last-named  poems  belong  to  a  type  which 
the  Germans  sometimes  call  the  *  lyric  of  thought ', — 
a  name  which  is  fairly  appopriate  to  a  goodly  number 
of  Schiller's  shorter  effusions.  Other  examples — to 
mention  a  few  of  the  best — are  *  Light  and  Warmth  ' , 
<  Breadth  and  Depth  '  and  '  Hope  '.  They  might  be 
called  lyrics  of  culture,  since  they  regard  the  perfection 
of  the  individual, — the  equipoise  of  heart  and  head, 
steadfast  seriousness  as  opposed  to  showy  sciolism,  the 
preservation  of  hope  and  faith, — as  a  noble  object  of 
emotion.  They  are  not  intellectual  in  the  opprobrious 
sense  of  the  word  as  applied  to  poetry ;  they  are  suffused 
with  warm  feeling  and  their  language  is  simple  and 
natural.  On  the  other  hand  they  are  argumentative : 
they  state  propositions  and  draw  conclusions  the  value 
of  which  must  in  the  end  be  gauged  by  the  mind.  For 
this  reason  one  who  has  no  sympathy  with  Schiller's 
idealism, — one  who  either  never  felt  it  or  has  lost  it  in 
the  stress  of  life,  ^ — will  not  be  touched  by  these  poems, 
but  will  regard  them  as  hollow.    Yet  they  are  no  more 


The  Maiden^s  Lament  325 

hollow  than  the  lyrics  of  Goethe  or  Heine  or  Shelley, 
though  the  illusion  of  sincerity  is  less  perfect  than  in 
the  work  of  these  great  lyrists. 

A  pure  lyric  effusion,  of  the  kind  that  seems  to  sing 
itself  without  help  or  let  from  the  brooding  philosopher, 
was  not  often  attempted  by  Schiller.  Perhaps  his  very 
best  achievement  in  this  sort  is  *  The  Maiden's  Lament ', 
of  which  the  first  two  stanzas,  translated  as  closely  as 
possible  with  reference  to  both  substance  and  form, 
run  as  follows : 

The  oak-wood  moans,  the  clouds  float  o'er, 
The  maiden  sits  by  the  green  sea-shore. 
The  waves  are  breaking  with  might,  with  might, 
And  she  breathes  out  a  sigh  in  the  gloom  of  the  night, 
And  her  eyes  are  dim  with  weeping. 

«  My  heart  is  dead,  the  world  is  naught, 
It  brings  nothing  more  to  my  longing  thought, 
I  have  lived  and  loved, — earth's  fortune  was  mine. 
Thou  Holy  One,  take  this  child  of  thine. 
Take  her  back  into  thine  own  keeping.'  ^ 

Such  verses,  and  one  might  adduce  further  the 
admirable  songs  in  '  William  Tell ' ,  show  that  Schiller 
had  in  him,  when  he  could  find  it  and  let  it  have  its 

*  Der  Eichwald  brauset,  die  Wolken  ziehn, 
Das  Magdlein  sitzet  an  Ufers  Grlin, 
Es  bricht  sich  die  Welle  mit  Macht,  mit  Macht, 
Und  sie  seufzt  hinaus  in  die  finstere  Nacht, 
Das  Auge  von  Weinen  getrUbet. 

*'Das  Herz  ist  gestorben,  die  Welt  ist  leer, 
Und  weiter  giebt  sie  dem  Wunsche  nichts  mehr. 
Du  Heilige,  rufe  dein  Kind  zurtick, 
Ich  habe  genossen  das  irdische  GlUck, 
Ich  habe  gelebt  und  geliebet." 


326  Later  Poems 

way,  a  lyric  gift  of  a  high  order.  As  a  rule,  however, 
when  he  attempted  to  sing,  the  attempt  resulted  in  a 
philosophic  evaluation  of  the  feelings  expressed.  Thus 
in  his  well-known  *  Punch  Song  ' ,  he  is  mainly  con- 
cerned with  the  ethical  symbolism  of  the  four  elements, 
— the  lemon-juice,  the  sugar,  the  water  and  the  spirits. 
In  other  cases  he  suggests  an  allegorical  symbolism, 
and  leaves  the  reader  puzzling  over  an  intellectual 
query  that  may  or  may  not  be  worth  puzzling  over. 
Examples  are  'The  Maiden  from  Afar ',  *  The  Youth 
at  the  Brook  ' ,  *  The  Mountain  Song  ' .  He  even  wrote 
a  number  of  professed  poetic  riddles, — which  may  be 
left  without  commentary  to  those  who  like  that  sort  of 
poetry. 

The  cultural  poems  of  Schiller  have  always  enjoyed 
a  high  degree  of  popularity.  A  large  number  of  his 
lines  and  couplets  have  become  familiar  quotations  that 
come  readily  to  the  tongue  or  pen  of  the  educated 
German.  There  is  probably  no  modern  poet  who  has 
taken  a  deeper  hold  upon  the  intellectual  life  of  his 
countrymen.  This  is  partly  attributable  to  the  fact 
that  his  idealistic  sentiments  appeal  especially  to  the 
youthful.  No  poet  that  ever  lived  is  better  adapted  to 
the  needs  of  the  school ;  none  more  infallibly  safe  and 
inspiring  to  the  young  of  both  sexes.  For  the  riper 
mind  and  the  larger  experience  his  oracles  are  apt  to 
lose  somewhat  of  their  impressiveness ;  for  it  is  not  to 
be  denied  that  his  poetry  at  its  best  is  seldom  supremely 
good.  The  divine  spark  that  fuses  rare  thought  and 
waiting  expression  in  the  white  heat  of  the  imagination 
and  gives  one  the  sense  of  artistic  perfection  is  not 
often  there.    His  verse  is  never  cold,  never  trivial;  but 


The  Song  of  the  Bell 


327 


it  does  lack  artistic  distinction.  Its  highest  claim  is  to 
give  expression  to  the  maxims  of  a  ripe  culture  in 
tuneful  verses  and  pleasing  imagery  that  impress  them- 
selves readily  upon  the  general  heart.  This  is  what 
he  does  in  the  most  famous  of  all  his  poems,  *  The 
Song  of  the  Bell '.  It  is  not  great  poetry,  but  it  is  a 
pleasing  production  which  well  deserves  its  popularity. 

*  The  Song  of  the  Bell  '  was  first  given  to  the  world 
in  the  *  Almanac  '  of  1 800,  after  several  years  of  in- 
cubation. Its  germ-idea  is  similar  to  that  of  the  *  Punch 
Song  ' ;  that  is,  we  have  a  mechanical  process, — in  the 
one  case  the  mixing  of  a  glass  of  punch,  in  the  other 
the  casting  of  a  bell, — accompanied  at  its  various 
stages  by  reflections  of  an  ethical  character.  The  bell- 
founder  is  an  idealist  with  a  feeling  for  the  dignity  of 
man  and  of  man's  handiwork.  As  he  orders  his 
workmen  to  perform  the  successive  operations  involved 
in  the  casting  of  a  bell,  he  delivers,  from  the  depths  of 
his  larger  experience,  a  little  homily,  suggested,  in 
each  case,  by  the  present  stage  of  the  labor.  The 
master's  orders  are  given  in  a  lively  trochaic  measure, 
while  the  homilies  move  at  a  slower  gait  in  iambic 
lines  of  varying  length.  The  fiction  is  handled  with 
scrupulous  attention  to  technical  details,  and  is  made 
to  yield  at  the  same  time  a  series  of  easy  and  natural 
starting-points  for  a  poetic  review  of  life  from  the 
cradle  to  the  grave. 

The  great  charm  of  the  *  Song  '  lies  in  its  vivid  pic- 
tures of  the  epochs,  pursuits  and  occurrences  which 
constitute  the  joy  and  the  woe  of  life  for  an  ordinary 
industrious  burgher.  Childhood  and  youth ;  the  pas- 
sion of  the  lover,  sobering  into  the  steadfast  love  of  the 


328  Later  Poems 

husband ;  the  busy  toil  of  the  married  pair  in  field  and 
household ;  the  delight  of  accumulation  and  possession  ; 
the  calamity  of  fire  that  destroys  the  labor  of  years ; 
the  blessedness  of  peaceful  industry;  the  horrors  of 
revolutionary  fanaticism ;  the  benediction  of  civic  con- 
cord,— these  are  the  themes  that  are  brought  before  us 
in  a  series  of  stirring  pictures  that  are  irresistibly 
fascinating.  To  have  felt  and  expressed  so  admirably 
the  poetry  of  e very-day  Hfe,  and  that  at  the  very  time 
when  the  Romanticists  were  beginning  to  fill  the  air 
with  noise  about  the  prosaic  dullness  of  the  present 
time  as  compared  with  the  Middle  Ages,  was  a  great 
achievement,  and  all  the  greater  as  Schiller  himself 
had  not  remained  unaffected  by  the  Romantic  doctrine. 
He  could  Hellenize  and  philosophize,  and,  on  occasion, 
he  could  Romanticize ;  but  '  The  Song  of  the  Bell ' 
shows  how  deeply,  after  all,  his  feeling  was  rooted  in 
the  life  of  the  German  people. 

The  *  Almanac  '  for  1 800  was  the  last  volume  that 
appeared,  and  after  the  removal  of  this  exigency 
Schiller's  lyrical  production  diminished.  His  best 
strength  was  devoted  to  his  plays,  which  in  themselves, 
however,  contain  a  large  lyric  element.  The  choral 
parts  of  *  The  Bride  of  Messina  '  show  the  final  phase 
of  his  art  in  its  perfection.  Like  these,  the  few  inde- 
pendent poems  written  by  him  during  the  last  years  of 
his  life  are  characterized  by  great  beauty  of  diction  and 
of  rhythmic  cadence,  but  in  their  substance  they  hardly 
compare  with  the  best  of  his  previous  work.  Most 
noteworthy  are  *  Cassandra  ',  devoted  to  the  pathos  of 
foreseeing  calamity  without  being  able  to  prevent  it, 
and  '  The  Festival   of  Victory  ' ,  wherein   the   Greek 


Latest  Poems 


329 


heroes,  assembled  for  departure  after  the  sack  of  Troy, 
discourse  amiably  and  profoundly  upon  the  finer  issues 
of  life.  In  some  of  the  shorter  and  more  subjective 
poems  there  is  discernible  a  note  of  sadness,  as  of  a 
drooping  spirit  unreconciled,  after  all,  to  the  stress  of 
this  earthly  existence.  This  is  heard,  for  example,  in 
*  Longing  '  and  *  The  Pilgrim  *.  But  from  such  sporadic 
utterances  no  large  inference  should  be  drawn  respect- 
ing Schiller's  mental  history.  They  proceeded  from  a 
sick  man  whose  days  were  numbered. 


CHAPTER    XVI 
Wallenatein 

So  hab'  ich 
Mit  eignem  Netz  verderblich  mich  umstrickt, 
Und  nur  Gewaltthat  kann  es  reiszend  losen. 

'  Wallenstein  \ 

The  great  play  which  signalizes  the  return  of  Schiller 
to  dramatic  poetry  must  be  accounted  upon  the  whole 
his   masterpiece.      To  be  sure  it  is  less  popular  than 
*  Tell  *   and    less    immediately   effective    than    *  Mary 
Stuart  *.      It  has  not  the  romantic  soulfulness  of  '  The 
Maid  of  Orleans',   nor  the  splendid  diction  of  'The 
Bride  of  Messina  '.     On  the  stage,  too,  its  effectiveness 
is  somewhat  impaired  by  its  great  length.     But  in  the 
/  imaginative    power   whereby    history    is    made    into 
I  drama ;  in  the  triumph  of  artistic  genius  over  a  vast  and 
\  refractory  mass  of  material,  and  in  the  skill  with  which 
\  the  character  of  the  hero  is  conceived  and  denoted, 
'  '  Wallenstein  '  is  unrivaled.     Well  might  Goethe  pro- 
nounce it  *  so  great  that  nothing  could  be  compared 
I  with  it ' .      Its  chief  figure  is  by  far  the  stateliest  and 
I  most  impressive  of  German  tragic  heroes. 
]       Since  the  completion  of  *  Don  Carlos  '  Schiller  had 
written  nothing  of  any  moment  in  the  dramatic  form. 
For  nine  years  he  had  been  occupied  with  historical 
and  philosophic  studies  which  he  himself  regarded  as 

330 


Preparatory  Studies  331 

preparatory  to  some  new  and  nobler  flight  of  artistic 
creation.  Of  course  he  had  been  aware  all  along,  none 
better  than  he,  that  great  poetry  cometh  not  by  theoriz- 
ing ;  that  theory  could  have  at  the  best  only  a  general 
regulative  value.  At  the  same  time,  with  the  example 
of  Lessing  before  him,  he  could  not  but  feel  that  this 
regulative  value  might  be  very  great.  And  so  he  had 
gone  resolutely  on  his  way,  even  after  the  dread  truth 
had  come  home  to  him  that  he  had  not  long  to  live 
and  might  never  be  able  to  reap  the  fruit  of  what  he 
was  sowing. 

He  had  studied  certain  epochs  of  history  very  care- 
fully and  had  acquired  a  deeper  insight  into  that 
tangled  interplay  of  inward  motive  and  outward  cir- 
cumstance which  determines  the  course  of  events. 
Philosophy  had  only  deepened  his  early  conviction  that 
man's  dignity,  his  heroism,  consists  in  his  free  self- 
determination  ;  but  who  knew  better  than  he  the  infinite 
pathos  of  the  battle  between  '  will '  and  *  must '  ?  He 
had  become  familiar  with  the  spirit  and  the  technique 
of  the  Greek  drama  and  learned  to  admire  its  simple 
and  stately  architecture.  Latterly,  however,  he  had 
been  drawn  toward  the  moderns  and  had  found  in  the 
expression  of  the  modern  spirit — with  all  its  idealisms, 
its  heights  and  depths  and  mysteries  of  feeling — a 
higher  artistic  goal  than  antiquity  had  ever  imagined. 
Finally,  his  association  with  Goethe  had  taught  him  the 
importance  of  looking  fairly  at  life  and  portraying  it 
not  indeed  just  as  it  is,  but  in  its  essential  human  spirit. 
This,  for  him,  was  to  idealize. 

Two  themes  had  been  suggested  by  his  historical 
studies,  and  both  had  haunted  his  thoughts  for  years, 


332 


Wallenstcin 


— '  The  Knights  of  Malta  '  and  *  Wallenstein  '.  The 
former,  if  his  plan  had  been  carried  out,  would  have 
yielded  a  play  of  the  classical  type,  with  few  characters 
and  a  severely  simple  structure.  In  the  final  balancing 
of  the  two  subjects  *  Wallenstein  '  prevailed,  no  doubt 
because  it  seemed  in  advance  the  easier  and  the  more 
promising.  It  pointed  to  a  familiar  field  where  history 
itself  had  already  shaped  in  the  rough  a  stupendous 
and  fascinating  tragedy.  To  reproduce  the  form  and 
pressure  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  at  one  of  its  most 
exciting  moments,  was  an  alluring  problem  to  a 
dramatist  who  had  written  a  history  of  the  struggle, 
and  who  had  always  felt  that  his  strength  lay  in  the 
historical  drama. 

Serious  musings  upon  *  Wallenstein  *  began,  as  we 
have  seen,  in  the  autumn  of  1796.^  The  first  great 
problem  was,  of  course,  the  general  plan  of  the  piece, 
— how  to  select,  dispose  and  concentrate.  To  quicken 
his  imagination  Schiller  commenced  reading  again  upon 
the  history  of  the  period  and  soon  perceived  that  what 
he  already  knew  would  be  quite  inadequate;  that  it 
would  be  necessary  to  go  over  the  whole  ground  anew 
and  more  thoroughly.  He  found  the  material  dry, 
chaotic  and  abstract;  in  short,  lacking  in  nearly  all 
the  poetic  elements  which  he  would  have  thought  in- 
dispensable a  few  years  before.  He  could  not  treat  it 
in  his  earlier  manner.  He  had  no  love  for  any  of  his 
personages  except  Max  and  Thekla,  whom  he  had 
invented  for  the  purpose  of  infusing  a  little  warm  blood 

1  Let  it  be  said  once  for  all  (to  avoid  frequent  references),  that  the 
following  account  of  the  genesis  of  '  Wallenstein  '  is  based  upon  Schiller's 
letters — chiefly  to  KOrner  and  to  Goethe — beginning  in  November,  1796. 


Difficulties  of  the  Subject  333 

into  an  action  which  would  otherwise  have  been  domi- 
nated altogether  by  the  cold  passions  of  ambition, 
vindictiveness  and  fear.  Wallenstein  was  not  great  or 
noble;  at  best  he  could  only  be  made  terrible.  The 
basis  of  his  power  was  his  army,  and  this — so  it  seemed 
to  Schiller  at  first — was  too  large  and  complex  a  thing 
to  be  effectively  portrayed.  Then,  too,  his  enterprise 
failed  chiefly  because  of  bad  management,  and  he  him- 
self rather  than  fate  was  to  blame  for  his  catastrophe. 
This  Schiller  regarded  as  the  weak  point  of  the  whole 
subject;  but  he  took  some  comfort  from  the  example 
of  'Macbeth  '. 

Notwithstanding  these  difficulties,  however,  he 
worked  at  his  task  with  great  eagerness,  feeling  that 
just  such  a  subject  as  '  Wallenstein  '  would  prove  the 
crucial  test  of  his  powers.  His  old  theory  that  love  is  f 
what  makes  the  artist  was  now  completely  outgrown, 
and  he  was  gratified  to  observe  that  he  had  learned  to 
keep  himself  out  of  his  work.  So  much  for  the  influ-  ^ 
ence  of  Goethe,  to  whom  he  wrote,  in  November, 
1796,  as  follows  : 

With  the  general  spirit  of  my  work  you  will  probably  be  satis- 
fied. I  might  almost  say  that  the  subject  does  not  interest  me 
at  all.  I  have  never  combined  such  coolness  toward  my  theme 
with  such  a  warmth  of  feeling  for  my  work.  My  principal 
character,  and  the  most  of  my  subordinate  characters,  I  have 
treated  up  to  this  time  with  the  pure  love  of  the  artist. 

After  some  hesitation  between  prose  and  verse  he 
began  in  prose,  being  led  thereto  partly  by  the  advice 
of  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt  and  partly  by  his  own  desire 
to  produce  this    time  an  acceptable  stage-play.      His 


334 


Wallcnstein 


progress  was  at  first  very  slow.  There  was  endless 
reading  to  be  done  and  endless  rumination  over  the 
plot.  In  the  winter  season,  with  its  close  confinement 
and  its  lowered  vitality,  the  invalid  could  accomplish 
but  little.  He  fixed  his  hopes  longingly  upon  the 
return  of  spring  and  decided  to  buy  a  house  with  a 
garden,  so  that  he  could  muse  and  write  in  the  open 
air.  In  May,  1797,  the  purchase  was  made,  but  by 
this  time  work  on  '  Wallenstein  '  had  completely  stag- 
nated and  other  interests  were  at  the  fore.  He  was 
back  among  the  Greeks.  Renewed  study  of  Sophocles, 
particularly  of  the  *  Trachiniae  *  and  the  *  Philoctetes  *, 
had  convinced  him  that  everything  hinges  upon  the 
invention  of  a  poetic  fable.  To  quote  again  from  a 
letter  to  Goethe : 

The  modern  poet  wrestles  laboriously  and  anxiously  with  ac- 
cidental and  subordinate  matters  and,  in  his  effort  to  be  very 
realistic,  loads  himself  down  with  the  vacuous  and  the  trivial. 
Thus  he  runs  a  risk  of  losing  the  deep-lying  truth  which- consti- 
tutes the  real  nature  of  the  poetical.  He  would  fain  imitate  an 
actual  occurrence,  and  does  not  consider  that  a  poetic  repre- 
sentation can  never  coincide  with  actuality,  because  it  is  abso- 
lutely true. 

A  little  later  he  took  up  the  study  of  Aristotle's 
*  Poetics  '  and  was  delighted  to  find  that  the  dread 
Rhadamanthus  was  after  all  so  very  liberal  and  sensi- 
ble. He  had  now  reached  a  firm  footing  and  was  not 
to  be  dislodged  even  by  Aristotle,  whose  whole  body  of 
doctrine,  as  he  did  not  fail  to  observe,  was  deduced 
empirically  from  concrete  specimens  of  a  particular  type 
of  play.  It  could  not  be  canonical  for  all  the  world, 
but  it  was  very  instructive.     Schiller  was  glad  that  he 


Decision  in  Favor  of  Verse  335 

had  finally  discovered  Aristotle,  but  glad  also  that  he 
had  never  read  him  before. 

On  returning  to  *  Wallenstein  '  in  October,  after  the 
summer  claims  of  the  '  Almanac  '  had  been  satisfied, 
he  noticed  that  what  he  had  written  was  characterized 
by  a  certain  dryness.  It  was  evident  that,  in  his 
strenuous  effort  to  avoid  his  besetting  sin  of  rhetoric, 
he  was  in  danger  of  becoming  trivial.  He  had  still' a 
sustaining  faith  in  the  goodness  of  his  subject,  but  the 
great  problem  would  be  to  make  it  poetical.  It  was 
necessary  to  find  the  middle  way  between  the  rhetorical 
and  the  prosaic.  The  practical  result  of  these  cogita- 
tions was  a  decision  to  write  *  Wallenstein  '  in  verse. 
In  versifying  the  completed  scenes  he  found  himself, 
so  he  wrote  to  Goethe,  before  a  different  tribunal. 
Much  that  had  seemed  very  good  in  prose  would  not 
do  at  all ;  for  verse  tended  to  invest  everything  with 
an  imaginative  nimbus  which  rendered  triviality  and 
merQ  logic  intolerable. 

But  the  new  form  brought  with  it  a  new  danger — 
that  of  prolixity.  It  was  necessary  that  the  exposition 
account  for  Wallenstein 's  conduct  by  exhibiting  the 
sources  of  his  power.  This  meant  a  dramatic  picture 
of  his  wild  and  irresponsible  soldatesca.  The  theme 
was  boundless  and  Schiller  was  a  facile  verse-maker. 
Ere  long  he  reported  ruefully  to  Goethe  that  his  first  act 
was  already  longer  than  three  acts  of  *Iphigenie'. 
He  was  in  doubt  whether  his  friend  had  not  infected 
him  with  a  '  certain  epic  spirit '  which  tended  to 
dififuseness.  In  his  embarrassment  of  riches  he  decided 
to  give  the  preliminary  picture  the  form  of  a  dramatic 
prologue  having  but  a  loose  connection  with  the  play 


336  Waflenstein 

proper,  which  was  still  conceived  as  a  five-act  tragedy. 

During  the  winter  of  1797-8  he  worked  as  he  could, 
steadily  upborne  by  the  friendly  encouragement  of 
Goethe.  When  summer  arrived  the  last  two  acts  were 
still  unfinished,  and  the  first  three  had  grown  to  por- 
tentous dimensions.  It  was  now  that  he  decided  to 
divide  his  unmanageable  tragedy  into  two  parts,  *  The 
Piccolomini '  and  *  Wallenstein's  Death  ' ;  his  idea  being 
that  'The  Piccolomini',  preceded  by  the  dramatic 
prologue,  which  was  now  christened  'Wallenstein's 
Camp  ' ,  would  fill  up  an  evening  and  prepare  the  way 
for  the  real  tragedy  of  *  Wallenstein's  Defection  and 
Death  '.  This  plan,  involving  a  reconstruction  of  the 
whole,  was  carried  out  in  the  ensuing  months.  At  the 
urgent  request  of  Goethe,  preparations  were  made  to 
reopen  the  newly-renovated  Weimar  theater  with  a 
performance  of  the  *  Camp  '  alone.  As  the  piece  was 
too  short  for  this  purpose,  Schiller  hastily  amplified  it 
to  a  sufficient  size  and  wrote  for  it  a  noble  prologue, 
which  ranks  among  the  best  of  his  poems.  When 
played  at  Weimar,  in  October,  1798,  the  '  Camp  '  was 
well  received  as  a  picturesque  novelty,  but  that  was 
all.  It  gave  no  clew  to  what  was  coming,  and  there 
was  nothing  in  it  to  stir  the  depths  of  human  nature. 

*  The  Piccolomini  '  was  completed  in  December  and 
put  upon  the  Weimar  stage,  under  Schiller's  personal 
direction,  on  January  30,  1799.  As  then  performed  it 
included  two  acts  of  *  Wallenstein's  Death  *.  The  first 
performance  was  a  great  success.  The  Weimarians, 
with  Goethe  at  their  head,  were  enthusiastic;  and 
Schiller,  who  had  of  late  known  but  little  of  popular 
favor,    found    himself  suddenly   invested   with    a  new 


Completion  of  the  Play  337 

renown.  He  was  pleased,  elated;  from  this  time  on 
he  felt  sure  of  his  vocation  as  dramatic  poet.  Return- 
ing to  Jena  he  applied  himself  steadily  to  '  Wallenstein's 
Death  ',  completing  it  finally  in  March.  It  was  first 
played  on  the  20th  of  April,  preceded  at  short  inter- 
vals by  the  'Camp'  and  'The  Piccolomini '.  And 
great  indeed  was  the  poet's  triumph,  now  that  his 
achievement  could  be  judged  as  a  whole.  He  had 
given  his  best  after  years  of  preparation,  and  the  world 
saw  at  once  that  it  was  very  good.  The  animosities 
aroused  by  the  Xenia  lingered  for  a  while  in  a  few 
small  minds,  but  it  was  of  no  use  to  fight  genius 
with  the  missiles  of  petty  malice.  The  Germans  had 
accepted  Schiller  as  their  great  dramatist. 

To  form  a  right  estimate  of  ♦  Wallenstein  '  one  must 
first  look  at  it  in  a  large  way,  remembering  that  struc- 
turally  it    forms    a    class    all    by    itself.      The    name 
'trilogy',  in  the  technical  sense  of  the  Greeks,  does 
not  apply  to  it,  seeing  that  the  '  Camp  '  is  not  an  in- 
tegral part  of  the  whole,  but  a  dramatic  prelude  in  an 
entirely  different  key.      In  a  loose  sense,  to  be  sure,  it 
forms  a  part  of  the  exposition ;  but  it  can  be  omitted 
entirely,  if  one  chooses,   since  everything  technically 
necessary  to  be  known  is  repeated  in  '  The  Piccolo-  f 
mini  '.      Its  characters  are  different  and  nothing  is  said 
or  done  that  is  vitally  related  to  the  ensuing  compli- 
cation.     Its  purpose  is  to  show  the  nature  of  Wallen-  I 
stein's  soldiers  and  the  grounds  of  their  attachment  to  | 
their  commander.     Their  loyalty  is  of  course  the  great  i 
factor  in  Wallenstein's  position;  it  is  because  he  relies 
upon   their   fidelity   that  he   dares   to   dally  with    the 
thought  of  treason.     But  this  fidelity  of  theirs,  their 


338  Waflenstein 

sturdy  esprit  du  corps,  their  unwillingness  to  be  sepa- 
rated, could  have  been  indicated  in  a  scene,  or  in  the 
report  of  a  messenger;  in  fact  it  is  indicated  in  the 
memorial  which  they  place  in  the  hands  of  Max  Pic- 
colomini. 

The  *  Camp  ',  then,  with  its  eleven-hundred  verses, 
is  to  be  regarded  as  a  military  genre-picture,  elaborated 
for  its  own  sake  into  an  independent  piece.  As  a 
prelude  it  transports  us  into  the  milieu  of  the  tragedy, 
but  without  anywhere  striking  its  key-note;  for  the 
tragedy  is  intensely  serious,  while  the  note  of  the 
'  Camp  ', — notwithstanding  an  undertone  of  seriousness 
without  which  it  could  not  have  been  the  work  of 
Schiller, — is  that  of  jovial  humor.  And  the  poet's 
scheme  required  just  this  effect  in  the  prelude.  One 
can  hardly  assent,  therefore,  to  the  suggestion  of 
Harnack  ^  that  it  would  have  been  well  if  the  sentiment 
of  loyalty  to  the  emperor  had  been  made  more  promi- 
nent and  given  a  more  worthy  champion  than  the  stolid 
Tiefenbachers,  who  have  nothing  to  say.  Had  this 
been  attempted  it  must  have  led  to  an  adumbration  of 
the  coming  tragic  conflict, — which  is  what  Schiller 
wished  to  avoid.  He  wished  that  spectator  and  reader 
should  accept  the  prelude  as  a  thing  of  its  own  kind, 
complete  in  itself.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  he  gave 
it  a  distinctive  meter,  having  convinced  himself  that 
meter  of  some  kind  was  essential  if  he  would  avoid 
banality.  With  a  wise  instinct  he  chose  the  old  free- 
\  and-easy  tetrameter,  which  Goethe  had  used  with  ex- 
cellent effect  in  some  of  his  early  plays.  In  German 
this  meter  lends  itself  beautifully  to  the  bluff,  off-hand 

1  "Schiller",  p.  286. 


Waflenstein^s  Camp  339 

discourse  of  soldiers.     It  gives  an  illusion  of  realism 
while  preserving  the  effect  of  poetry. 

Particularly  admirable  is  the  art  with  which  Schiller 
has  contrived  to  denote  the  motley  variety  of  human 
types  gathered  under  Wallenstein's  banner,  while 
giving  to  each  of  his  figures  a  fairly  distinct  individuality. 
With  a  little  study  of  costume  a  painter  could  paint 
them  all.  There  is  the  wretched  Peasant,  who  has 
been  reduced  to  beggary  and  is  willing  to  retrieve  his 
fortunes  by  gambling  with  loaded  dice ;  the  sagacious 
Sergeant,  who  always  knows  more  than  other  people, 
and  prides  himself  upon  *  the  fine  touch  and  the  right 
tone  '  that  can  only  be  acquired  near  the  person  of  the 
commander;  the  depraved  Chasseur,  who  glories  in 
fighting  for  its  own  sake,  cares  not  for  whom  or  what, 
and  objects  to  discipline;  the  philosophic  Cuirasseur, 
who  argues  for  a  higher  ideal  and  pities  the  woes  of  the 
producing  class,  but  cannot  help  matters;  and  the  fiery 
Capuchin,  who  pronounces  his  wordy  anathema  against 
the  whole  godless  crowd.  What  a  picturesque  assem-^ 
bly  they  make  and  how  admirably  they  bring  out  the 
lights  and  shadows  of  the  Wallenstein  regime!  One 
wonders  how  an  invalid  recluse,  a  bookish  philosopher 
like  Schiller,  should  ever  have  been  able  to  write  such 
scenes. 

The  total  effect  of  the  prelude  is  to  put  one  in  a  very 
good  humor  with  the  personages  who  figure  there. 
One  indeed  feels  sub-consciously  that  they  are  detest- 
able— not  a  whit  better  than  the  angry  friar  paints 
them.  One  sympathizes  intellectually  with  his  fierce 
denunciation  and  pities  the  land  that  is  exposed  to  such 
a  scourge.     And  yet — such  is  thepoetic  glamour  thrown 


340  Wallenstcin 

over  them — feelings  of  this  kind  never  become  domi- 
nant. It  is  like  the  squalid  slums  of  a  great  city,  when 
seen  through  the  sun-lit  morning  mist.  The  reality  is 
horrible,  revolting.  The  soul  of  the  philanthropist  is 
pained — but  not  so  the  eye  of  the  artist.  Schiller 
contrives  that  we  see  his  vagabonds  with  the  artistic 
eye  and  are  drawn  to  them  by  their  very  picturesque- 
ness.  We  quickly  impute  to  them  more  virtue  than 
their  ways  betoken ;  and  when  in  their  lusty  final  song 
they  break  out  in  a  strain  of  lofty  idealism : 

Und  setzet  ihr  nicht  das  Leben  ein, 

Nie  wird  euch  das  Leben  gewonnen  sein, 

one  is  hardly  conscious  of  the  incongruity. 

The  dramatic  fable  devised  by  Schiller  for  the  tragedy 
proper  carries  us  back  to  the  winter  of  1634.  Events 
extending  over  several  months  are  concentrated  by 
poetic  fiat  into  the  four  days  preceding  the  assassina- 
tion of  Wallenstein,  which  took  place  on  the  25th  of 
February.  The  prominent  characters  fall  into  two 
groups, — the  abettors  of  Wallenstein  in  his  treason, 
and  the  imperialists  who  work  his  ruin.  The  first 
group  consists  of  historical  personages,  mainly  officers, 
whom  he  had  bound  to  him  by  one  or  another  tie  of 
selfish  interest.  Foremost  among  these  are  Illo,  the 
Count  and  Countess  Terzky,  and  General  Butler,  who 
turns  against  his  chief  and  becomes  the  agent  of  his 
taking-off.  The  central  figure  of  the  other  group  is 
Octavio  Piccolomini,  whom  Schiller  converts  from  a 
young  officer  of  thirty  into  an  elderly  man  with  a 
grown-up  son.  Octavio,  in  reality  the  trusted  agent 
of  the  emperor,   is  regarded  by  Wallenstein  with  a 


The  Historical  Waflenstcin  341 

superstitious  infatuation  as  his  own  most  faithful  friend. 
Between  these  two  groups  stand  the  ingenuous  lovers,  . 
Max  and  Thekla,  imaginary  characters  who  can  make 
their  perfect  peace  with  neither  side  and  are  done  to 
death  in  a  pathetic  struggle  between  love  and  duty. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  Schiller  found  it  no  easy 
task  to  mould  the  historical  Wallenstein  into  a  satis- 
factory tragic  hero.  The  character  was  lacking  in 
nobility.  To  be  sure  it  was  not  necessary  to  make 
him  out  an  infamous  traitor;  for  his  character,  his 
motives,  the  measure  of  his  guilt,  were  subjects  of 
debate  among  the  historians,  and  the  evidence  was,  as 
it  still  is,  inconclusive.  It  was  therefore  quite  within 
the  license  of  a  dramatic  poet  to  take  the  part  of  Wal- 
lenstein, so  far  at  least  as  to  throw  into  strong  light  all 
the  palliating  circumstances  that  could  be  urged  in  his 
favor.  Such  were,  for  example,  that  he  was  a  prince 
of  the  empire  and  as  such  had  a  right  to  conduct 
negotiations  and  to  make  peace ;  that  he  wished  to  give 
rest  to  a  torn  and  bleeding  Germany;  that  he  had 
been  ignobly  treated  by  the  House  of  Austria,  and  so 
forth.  By  laying  stress  upon  these  things  and  passing 
lightly  over  others,  it  was  easily  possible  to  save  Wal- 
lenstein from  the  detestation  that  is  wont  to  associate 
itself  with  the  idea  of  a  traitor. 

But  for  an  interesting  tragic  hero  it  is  not  enough  to 
fall  short  of  infamy.  He  must  have  some  sort  of  dis- 
tinction. He  must  be  a  towering  personality.  One 
does  not  go  to  the  theater  to  be  convinced  in  a  moral 
or  political  argument,  but  to  be  carried  along  with  a 
rush  of  feeling,  for  which  the  old  term  sympathy  is 
perhaps  as  good  a  name  as  any  other.     A  magnificent 


34«  Waflenstcin 

criminal  will  serve  the  purpose  very  well,  as  Schiller 
had  discovered  in  his  early  years,  but  he  must  be 
magnificent.  Now  it  was  precisely  this  element  of 
greatness  that  was  lacking  in  the  character  of  the  his- 
torical Wallenstein.  No  lofty  idealism  of  any  kind 
could  be  imputed  to  him.  He  was  not  a  religious 
!  zealot,  like  Cromwell  or  Gustav  Adolf,  nor  was  he  a 
II  strenuous  German  patriot,  like  Frederick  the  Great. 
He  was  not  even  a  great  soldier;  for  while,  as  the  head 
of  a  great  host  of  marauding  mercenaries,  he  made 
himself  the  scourge  and  the  terror  of  Germany,  he 
never  won  a  decisive  battle  against  an  equal  enemy. 
The  history  of  his  fighting  is  largely  a  history  of 
futilities.  And  when  he  formed  the  plan  of  a  separate 
peace,  —  a  plan  which  if  promptly  and  vigorously 
executed  might  possibly  have  succeeded  and  have 
caused  him  to  be  numbered  with  the  benefactors  of 
Europe, — he  dallied  with  the  thought  i^ntil  it  was  too 
late,  fell  into  the  pit  which  he  had  digged  for  himself, 
and,  in  trying  to  flounder  out,  met  his  death  at  the 
hands  of  an  assassin  who  had  a  grudge  against  him. 
Thus  even  his  death  was  pitiful  rather  than  tragic.  It 
does  not  appear  to  be  the  work  of  that  high  Nemesis 
which  Schiller  noticed  as  dominating  the  career  of 
Shakspere's  Richard  the  Third. 

To  have  succeeded  as  Schiller  did  succeed,  in  the 
■  face  of  such  difficulties,  is  a  memorable  triumph  of  the 
!  poetic  art.  By  purely  aesthetic  means,  without  any 
appeal  to  political  or  religious  passion,  without  requir- 
ing us  to  take  sides  in  any  debatable  cause,  but  simply 
by  the  skill  and  subtlety  of  his  drawing,  he  has  invested 
Wallenstein  with  an   impressiveness  such    as  belongs 


-^ 


The  Figure  of  the  Hero 


343 


only  to  the  great  creations  of  the  great  tragic  poets. 
His  overruling  trait  is  ambition ;  and  in  the  denotation  • 
of  this,  as  of  his  whole  relation  to  the  Countess 
Terzky,  the  influence  of  ^  Macbeth  *  is  obvious.  And 
yet  he  is  very  far  from  being  a  copy  of  Shakspere's 
hero,  or  a  mere  embodiment  of  ambition.  On  the 
contrary,  he  is  the  most  complicate  of  all  Schiller's 
creations,  and  the  most  difficult  to  portray  on  the  stage 
in  a  thoroughly  satisfactory  manner.  As  a  good  critic 
observes,  he  is  *  fascinating  and  repulsive,  admirable 
and  contemptible,  fantastic  and  cunning,  cautious  and 
frivolous,  a  mighty  organizer  and  a  helpless  child,  false 
and  true,  touching  and  terrible,  a  mixture  of  all  possi- 
ble qualities,  and  yet  a  unity,  a  totality  '.^  The  promise 
of  the  Prologue  is  admirably  fulfilled : 

But  art  shall  show  him  in  his  human  form 
And  bring  him  nearer  to  your  eyes  and  hearts  ; 
She  sees  the  man  in  all  the  stress  of  lite, 
And  for  the  greater  portion  of  his  guilt 
She  blames  the  working  of  malignant  stars. 

The  last  two  lines,  be  it  observed,  involve  much  { 
more  than  a  mere  allusion  to  Wallenstein's  superstitious  j 
belief  in  astrology.  Schiller's  idea,  schooled  as  he 
had  been  for  years  upon  Sophocles  and  Shakspere,  was 
to  blend  the  fate-tragedy  of  the  ancients  with  the 
modern  tragedy  of  character.  The  two  things  were 
not  incompatible,  since  in  a  broad  view  of  the  matter 
a  man's  character  is  his  fate.  It  is  to  be  observed  also 
that  the  peculiar  effect  of  Greek  tragedy  does  not 
depend  upon  the  way  in  which  the  external  fAoipa  was 
conceived,  but  upon  the  fact  that  the  hero  seems  to  be 

^  Bulthaupt,  ''Dramaturgic  des  Schauspiels ",  I,  288. 


V 


344  Waflenstein 

battling,  and  was  by  the  audience  known  to  be  battling, 
•against  the  inevitable.     The  situation  is  not  what  he 
/  supposes,  and  the  event  will  not  be  what  he  intends. 

He  is  the  subject  of  an  illusion,  an  infatuation;  and  this 
arrj  is  the  principal  factor  in  the  tragic  effect.^ 
'  Now  Wallenstein's  art}  takes  the  form  of  a  blind  and 
overweening  self-conceit.  He  has  the  '  great-man- 
mania  '  hardly  less  than  Karl  Moor.  Accustomed  to 
I  follow  his  own  light,  to  command  and  to  be  obeyed,  and 
to  look  with  contempt  upon  the  interference  of  priests 
and  courtiers  in  the  business  of  war,  he  thinks  himself 
omnipotent.  There  is  no  power  that  he  fears  save  that 
of  the  stars ;  and  even  that  he  imagines  he  can  bend  to 
his  will  by  studious  attention  to  astrologic  portents. 
He  has  found  it  possible  to  raise  and  maintain  a  great 
army  by  taking  good  care  of  his  officers  and  men ;  and 
appealing  thus  constantly  to  the  lower  motives  of 
human  nature,  he  comes  to  think  at  last  that  there  are 
no  others.  When  the  Swede  Wrangel  suggests  a  sus- 
picion of  his  Chancellor  that  it  *  might  be  an  easier 
thing  to  create  out  of  nothing  an  army  of  sixty  thousand 
men  than  to  lead  a  sixtieth  part  of  them  into  an  act  of 
treachery*,  Wallenstein  replies:  'Your  Chancellor 
judges  like  a  Swede  and  a  Protestant. '  And  when  he 
finds  that  this  sentiment  of  loyalty — die  Treue^  one  of 
the  most  ancient  and  powerful  of  motives — is  still  a 
real  force  in  human  affairs,  he  can  only  account  for  it 
as  a  curious  superstition : 

^  Notwithstanding  frequent  references  to  occult  powers  and  overruling 
destiny,  the  Greek  idea  of  fate  is  quite  foreign  to  "Wallenstein".  It  is 
essentially  a  modem  character-drama.  Cf.  Fielitz,  '«  Studieri  zu  Schillers 
Dramen  ",  page  9  ff. 


Waflenstein^s  Impressiveness  345 

'Tis  not  the  embodiment  of  living  strength 

That  makes  the  truly  terrible.     It  is 

The  vulgar  brood  of  all  the  yesterdays, 

The  eternally  recurring  commonplace, 

That  was  and  therefore  is  and  hence  will  be. 

For  man  is  fashioned  of  the  trivial 

And  customary  use  he  names  his  nurse.* 

It  would  seem  as  if  such  a  blind  and  superstitious 
self-worshiper  could  have  but  little  chance  of  winning 
sympathy,  and  the  less  chance  for  the  reason  that  he 
really  does  nothing  in  the  play  to  justify  his  grand  airs. 
His  mighty  deeds  are  a  matter  of  hearsay.  We  are 
obliged  to  take  his  greatness  on  trust,  as  something 
growing  out  of  the  past.  And  yet  Schiller  contrives, 
with  splendid  artistic  cunning,  that  we  do  take  him 
from  first  to  last  at  his  own  estimate.  His  assumption 
of  superiority  appears  perfectly  reasonable ;  and  even 
in  the  ticklish  astrological  scenes,  about  which  Schiller 
himself  was  in  doubt  until  reassured  by  Goethe,  he 
never  becomes  ridiculous.  His  belief  in  destiny  and 
his  unctuous  palaver  about  the  occult  connection  of 
events  do  not  detract  from  his  dignity.  One  under- 
stands that  his  oracles  are  fallacious,  that  it  is  all  a 
humbug;  but  so  perfect  is  the  illusion  that  instead  of 
smiling  one  mentally  associates  him  with  other  men 
undoubtedly  great, — men  like  Caesar,   Cromwell    and 

1  Nicht  was  lebendig,  kraftvoll  sich  verktindigt, 
1st  das  gefahrlich  Furchtbare,     Das  ganz 
Gemeine  ist's,  das  ewig  Gestrige, 
Was  immer  war  und  immer  wiederkehrt, 
Und  morgen  gilt,  weil's  heute  hat  gegolten  ! 
i)enn  aus  Gemeinem  ist  der  Mensch  gemacht, 
Und  die  Gewohnheit  nennt  er  seine  Amme. 


346  Wallenstein 

Napoleon, — who  were  haunted  by  more  or  less  similar 
hallucinations. 

This  is  effected,  in  part  at  least,  by  bringing  Wal- 
lenstein into  contrast  with  vulgar  and  commmonplace 
natures.  In  the  presence  of  a  real  hero  he;;yould  be  a 
pigmy, — even  under  the  searchlight  of 'the  ardent 
young  Max  his  effulgence  pales  somewhat, — but  sur- 
rounded by  the  lUos,  the  Terzkys,  solanis  and  the 
rest  of  them,  he  is  a  moral  and  intellectual  giant.  One 
does  not  wish  to  belong  to  their  company  or  to  believe  - 
in  their  arguments ;  and  so  wheiv  they  urge  him  ^  act 
one  is  quite  prepared  to  credit  the  mysterious  oracles 
which  assure  him  that  the  time  is  not  yet  ripe.  Thus 
even  his  indecision, — most  damning  of  weaknesses  in 
a  great  soldier, — does  not  seem  to  belittle  him.  One 
enters  into  the  spirit  of  his  self-defense,  is  half  inclined 
to  believe  in  his  innocence  and  to  sympathize  with  him, 
when  the  psychological  moment  arrives  and  the  capture 
of  Sesina  compels  him  to  translate  a  traitorous  thought 
into  a  traitorous  deed.  And  even  after  this,  when  he 
stands  forth  as  a  declared  traitor;  while  his  trusted 
friends  are  secretly  turning  against  him,  and  his  un- 
suspected enemies  are  quietly  plotting  his  doom ; 
when,  with  a  futile  energy,  he  is  making  the  plans 
that  are  yet,  as  he  believes,  to  leave  him  master  of 
the  situation;  and  when,  finally,  in  his  bereavement 
and  isolation,  he  is  brought  to  face  his  miserable  fate, 
— everywhere  he  looms  up  as  a  grand  figure.  Schiller 
has  taken  good  care  that  one  shall  not  think  of  his 
treason  or  of  his  weakness,  but  rather  of  his  imposing 
personality. 

That  Wallenstein  produces  such  an   impression   is 


Octavio  Piccolomini  347 

largely  due  to  the  character  of  his  chief  antagonist. 
Octavio  Piccolomini  is  certainly  one  of  Schiller's  most 
notable  minor  studies.  It  is  he  who  stands  for  the 
cause  of  loyalty  to  which  one  naturally  leans ;  but  he 
is  so  portra;«'ed  that  one  soon  distrusts  and  in  the  end 
almost  despises  him.  And  yet  he  is  no  villain  of  the 
extreme  type  so  dear  to  Schiller  in  his  early  years. 
Octavio 's  conduc.and  his  sentiments  are  technically 
correct.  He  is  a  faithful  servant  of  the  empire,  a  far- 
sighted  and  energetic  commander  and  an  affectionate 
fathei  The  groundwork  of  his  character  seems  much 
better  entitled  to  sympathy  than  that  of  Wallenstein. 
In  the  play,  however,  from  the  moment  we  hear  of  the 
secret  order  making  him  temporary  commander-in- 
chief,  we  begin  to  suspect  that  he  too  is  playing  a 
game  for  profit.  And  when  he  lays  his  secret  plans 
against  Wallenstein,  while  openly  appearing  as  his 
friend;  when  he  craftily  works  upon  the  vanity  of 
Butler,  and  instils  into  Butler's  small  soul  the  poison 
of  a  murderous  hate,  one  is  not  drawn  to  the  cause 
which  needs  such  championship. 

Rationally  and  before  the  bar  of  politics,  Octavio 's 
conduct  is  unimpeachable.  He  does  his  duty  in  baffling 
a  powerful  traitor  in  the  most  effective  way.  It  is  not 
his  fault  that  Wallenstein  is  deceived  in  him,  and  noth- 
ing requires  that  he  go  and  undeceive  him.  He  resorts 
to  no  tricks,  he  feigns  no  sentiments  that  are  not  his. 
He  but  tells  the  truth  to  Butler  in  regard  to  the  ancient 
matter  of  the  title.  It  is  no  part  of  his  plan  that  Butler 
shall  murder  his  former  chief.  And  when  Wallenstein 
falls,  not  so  much  because  of  his  present  treason  as 
because  of  his  former  duplicity,  Octavio  is  technically 


348  Wallcnstein 

guiltless  of  the  deed.  And  yet  so  skillfully  is  the  por- 
trait drawn,  so  subtly  are  the  lights  and  shadows 
managed,  that  when  the  curtain  falls  one  is  little  dis- 
posed to  sympathize  with  him  in  his  triumph.  There 
is  a  world  of  ironical  pathos  in  those  last  words  of  the 
play:    *  To  Prince  Piccolomini '. 

A  very  important  element  in  the  impression  pro- 
duced by  Octavio,  as  also  in  that  produced  by  Wallen- 
stein  himself,  is  the  fact  that  we  are  made  to  try  them 
not  at  the  bar  of  worldly  ethics,  but  before  the  tribunal 
of  the  heart  as  represented  by  the  young  idealist.  Max. 
It  is  a  weak  criticism  of  Wallenstein  which  objects  to 
the  love-story  or  regards  it  as  a  mere  concession  to  the 
sentimental  demands  of  the  average  play-goer.  For 
the  reason  just  stated  it  must,  rather  be  looked  upon  as 
a  vital  element  of  the  plot.  No  doubt  the  play  can  be 
imagined  without  it  and  would  in  that  case  be  more 
in  accordance  with  history.  But  what  a  relatively  cold 
affair  it  would  be !  The  tragedy  of  the  lovers  is  an  im- 
portant part  of  the  Nemesis  that  follows  Wallenstein 
from  the  moment  of  his  taking  the  fateful  step.  It  is 
this  which  makes  in  no  small  degree  the  real  impres- 
siveness  of  his  final  isolation.  Without  it  we  should 
see  in  Wallenstein  a  masterful  spirit,  like  Macbeth, 
playing  fast  and  loose  with  the  higher  law  and  meeting 
an  ignoble  fate  at  the  hands  of  enemies  meaner  than 
himself.  In  a  sense  the  moral  law  would  be  vindicated, 
but  how  much  more  effective  is  the  vindication  when 
this  masterful  spirit  first  makes  havoc  of  all  that  should 
be  dearest  to  him  as  a  man ! 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  figure  of  Max,  like  that  of 
Posa,    is    out   of  harmony  with    the    general    milieu. 


Max  Piccolomini  349 

Schiller  was  a  lover  of  contrast,  and  in  his  skillful  use 
of  it  lies  a  large  part  of  his  effectiveness  as  a  play- 
wright. To  a  certain  extent  his  contrasts  are  made  to 
order;  that  is,  they  proceed  from  the  vision  of  the  artist 
calculating  an  effect,  rather  than  from  the  observation 
of  life  as  it  is.  Partisans  of  realism  tell  us  that  this 
propensity  is  a  weakness,  a  fault;  and  such  it  is,  beyond 
question,  whenever  it  leads  to  forced  and  stagy  con- 
trasts. But  surely  no  general  indictment  can  lie 
against  Schiller  for  taking  advantage  of  a  principle 
which  is  perfectly  legitimate  in  itself  and  has  been  em- 
ployed more  or  less  freely  by  the  dramatists  of  all  ages, 
including  realists  like  Ibsen  and  Hauptmann.  After 
all  life  does  really  offer  contrasts  of  character  as  glaring 
as  any  that  poet  ever  imagined,  only  they  are  not  apt 
to  be  found  in  juxtaposition.  The  artist,  however,  has 
a  perfect  right  to  juxtapose  them  if  it  suits  his  purpose ; 
that  is,  if  it  will  really  enhance  the  effect  that  he  wishes 
to  produce.  If  ever  he  departs  too  far  from  the 
familiar  verities  of  life,  he  pays  the  penalty;  for  the 
judicious,  instead  of  being  thrilled  by  his  pathos  (or 
whatever  it  may  be),  are  annoyed  by  his  artificiality. 
This  is  the  whole  law  of  the  matter,  so  far  as  its 
general  aspect  is  concerned. 

As  for  Max  Piccolomini,  he  is  a  perfectly  thinkable  ; 
character — in  the  time  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  or 
at  any  other  time.  There  is  nothing  supernal  about  | 
him;  he  is  simply  the  type  of  a  brave  and  honorable 
young  soldier  who  tries  to  walk  by  the  higher  law  of 
conscience.  There  are  always  such  men  in  the  world, 
and  Schiller  cannot  be  blamed  for  locating  one  in  the 
camp  of  Wallenstein,  though  history  omitted  to  hand 


35° 


Waflenstcm 


down  his  name.  It  is  perhaps  a  little  surprising  that 
such  a  youngster  as  Max  should  be  in  command  of  the 
great  Pappenheim's  regiment;  that,  however,  is  a  part 
of  the  presupposition  which  one  must  mentally  adjust 
as  best  one  can.  Within  the  limits  of  the  play  every- 
thing follows  naturally.  As  a  soldier  he  loves  his 
commander  and  sides  with  him  instinctively  against  the 
courtiers  and  politicians.  His  enthusiasm  increases  the 
*  mighty  suggestion  '  that  goes  out  from  Wallenstein ; 
one  feels  that  the  object  of  such  idolatry  from  such  a 
worshiper  must  indeed  be  great.  In  the  love-scenes 
Max  is  always  a  man, — no  trace  here  of  sentimental 
weakness,  or  of  any  leaning  to  Quixotic  folly.      In  his 

'  relation  to  Wallenstein,  to  Octavio,  and  to  Thekla, 
his  character  is  firmly  and  naturally  drawn.  And 
when  his  great  disillusionment  comes  and  he  is  forced 

^  to  choose  between  love  and  duty,  he  makes  a  man's 
choice  and  his  career  ends  as  it  must  end — in  a  tragic 
drama. 

The  drawing  of  the  female  characters  in  *  Wallen- 
stein '  bears  witness,  like  all  the  rest  of  the  play,  to  the 
ripening  power  of  the  years  that  had  intervened  since 
the  writing  of  '  Don  Carlos  '.  That  indefinable  some- 
thing that  infects  the  earlier  heroines  of  Schiller  and 
gives  them  an  air  of  sentimental  futility,  or  else  of 
schematic  unnaturalness,  has  disappeared.  The 
Countess  Terzky,  in  particular,  is  a  strong  portrait 
which  one  can  admire  without  reservation.  As  for 
Thekla,  while  her  essence  is  an  all-absorbing  love  for 
Max,  she  has  at  the  same  time  a  will  and  an  energy 
of  resolution  which  make  her  the  worthy  daughter  of 
her  father.     Upon  the  whole  she  is  the  most  lovable 


Max  and  Thckia  351 

of  all  the  heroines  of  Schiller.  It  is  her  tragedy  of  the 
heart  which  renders  *  Wallenstein  '  perennially  interest- 
ing to  the  young.  And  this  is  much;  for  does  not 
Goethe's  shrewd  Merry- Andrew  declare  that  the  great 
object  of  dramatic  art  is  to  please  the  young, — that  die 
Werdenden  are  the  very  ones  to  be  considered  ?  ^ 

It  is  true  that  critics,  speaking  more  for  die  Gewor- 
denen,  have  often  objected  that  the  love-story  in 
'  Wallenstein  '  is  unduly  expanded  and  that  the  lines 
have  here  and  there,  for  a  historical  tragedy,  rather  too 
much  of  a  sentimental,  lyrical  coloring.  In  the  first 
of  these  objections,  at  any  rate,  there  is  some  force. 
It  was  Schiller's  personal  fondness  for  his  pair  of  lovers 
that  led  him  to  spin  out  his  material  until  it  became 
necessary  to  divide  it  into  two  plays  of  five  acts  each. 
This,  from  a  dramatic  point  of  view,  was  unfortunate, 
albeit  the  reader  who  knows  the  entire  work  will  hardly 
find  it  in  his  heart  to  wish  that  any  portion  of  it  had 
remained  unwritten.  Properly  speaking,  the  entire 
'  Piccolomini '  should  constitute  the  first  two  acts  of  a  ■ 
five-act  tragedy.  It  has  no  distinct  unity  of  its  own,  , 
but  it  takes  an  entire  evening  with  what  is  properly  the  f 
exposition  and  the  entanglement  of  a  play  relating  to 
Wallenstein 's  defection  and  death.  The  result  of  a 
separate  performance  is  that  the  climax  of  what  should 
be  the  third  act — Wallenstein 's  momentous  decision 
— comes  right  at  the  beginning  of  the  second  evening, 

^  Dann  sammelt  sich  der  Jugend  schOnste  Bllite 
Vor  eurem  Spiel  und  lauscht  der  Offenbarung, 
Dann  sauget  jedes  zartliche  Gemtite 
Aus  eurem  Werk  sich  melanchol'sche  Nahrung.  .   .  . 
Wer  fertig  ist,  dem  ist  nichts  recht  zu  machen  ; 
Ein  Werdender  wird  immer  dankbar  sein. — *  Faust '. 


352  Wallenstein 

and  is  thus  not  adequately  led  up  to,  save  as  one 
carries  over  the  impressions  of  a  preceding  occasion. 
The  effect  is  like  that  of  dividing  any  other  play 
between  the  second  and  the  third  act.  One  could 
wish,  therefore,  that  Schiller  had  seen  fit  in  his  later 
years  to  prepare  a  stage  version  which  would  have 
made  it  possible  to  present  the  entire  play  in  a  single 
evening.  It  would  have  been  a  difficult  task, — hope- 
less for  an  ordinary  theatrical  man  working  by  the 
process  of  excision, — but  for  Schiller  it  would  have  been 
possible.  And  if  he  had  attempted  it,  we  may  be  quite 
certain  that  the  love-story  would  have  been  very  much 
abbreviated. 

As  regards  the  lyrical  and  softly-sentimental  pas- 
sages, the  cogency  of  the  critical  objection  is  not  so 
clear.  Any  opinion  grounded  upon  an  abstract  theory 
of  historical  tragedy  as  such  can  have  but  little  weight. 
Schiller  had  no  models  for  '  Wallenstein  ' ;  and  if  he 
had  had,  there  is  always  more  merit  in  finding  new 
paths  than  in  following  the  old.  Historical  tragedy 
without  tender  sentiment  is  possible,  but  it  presupposes 
a  public  politically  awake  and  an  author  upborne  and 
inspired  by  a  vigorous  national  life.  Schiller  could 
appeal  to  no  such  public,  and  his  instinct  told  him  that 
a  play  based  upon  cold  passions  must  itself  be  cold. 
So  he  chose  to  sentimentalize  history,  at  the  expense 
of  detracting  somewhat  from  its  dignity,  rather  than  to 
make  frigid  plays  which  no  one  would  care  to  see  or 
to  read.  And  if  we  grant  a  raison  d'  etre  to  the  senti- 
mentalized historical  drama,  no  fault  can  reasonably 
be  found  with  lyrical  passages  like  that  at  the  end  of 
the  third  act  of  *  The  Piccolomini '.     Schiller  found  the 


Schiller's  Method  353 

soliloquy  at  hand  as  an  accepted  convention  of  the 
stage  and  he  converted  it  occasionally  into  a  lyric 
monologue,  as  Goethe  had  done  before  him  in  *  Iphi- 
genie  '  and  *  Faust'.  This  looked  toward  opera, 
toward  Romanticism,  toward  a  mixture  of  types;  but 
it  was  effective  as  a  mode  of  portraying  states  of  feeling. 
The  lyric  monologue  is  of  course  out  of  tune  with  the 
modern  naturalistic  dogma,  but  so  is  Hamlet's  solilo- 
quy. And  then  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
naturalistic  dogma  was  no  part  of  Schiller's  creed. 

A  noteworthy  characteristic  of  '  Wallenstein  ',  as  of 
all  the  plays  that  followed  it,  is  its  pervading  serious- 
ness. Humor  plays  no  part.  There  are  no  Dogberries 
or  grave-diggers,  no  quips  or  quibbles.  Schiller  had 
but  little  of  the  far-famed  quality  of  'irony  '.  It  did 
not  lie  in  his  nature  to  take  a  position  aloof  from  the 
moving  panorama  of  life  and  depict  it  impassively  as  it 
runs,  with  its  sharp  contrasts  of  grave  and  gay,  of  high 
and  low.  He  is  always  a  part  of  the  world  that  he 
creates.  For  the  other  and  higher  method,  as  exem- 
plified by  Shakspere  and  also  by  Goethe  in  '  Wilhelm 
Meister',  he  showed  a  keen  appreciation,  and  for  a 
little  while  he  imagined  that  he  himself  was  catching 
the  trick.  That  he  did  not  altogether  deceive  himself 
is  abundantly  proved  by  *  Wallenstein's  Camp  '.  After 
that,  however,  the  ingrained  seriousness  of  his  tempera- 
ment reasserted  itself  with  all-controlling  power.  The 
gift  of  humor  was  not  denied  him,  but  the  use  of  it  in  a 
grave  drama  was  repugnant  to  his  sense  of  style.  In 
this  respect  he  was  more  a  disciple  of  the  French  and 
of  the  Greeks  than  of  Shakspere. 


CHAPTER  XVn 
ifcarc  Stuatt 

Wohlthatig  heilend  nahet  mir  der  Tod, 

Der  ernste  Freund  !     Mit  seinen  schwarzen  Flijgeln 

Bedeckt  er  meine  Schmach — den  Menschen  adelt, 

Den  tiefstgesunkenen  das  letzte  Schicksal. — 'Mary  Stuart\ 

After  the  completion  of  *  Wallenstein  ',  in  the 
spring  of  1 799,  Schiller  was  not  long  in  selecting  a  new 
dramatic  theme.  The  unwonted  leisure  was  irksome 
to  him,  so  that  he  felt  like  one  living  in  a  vacuum. 
At  first,  being  weary  of  war  and  politics,  he  was 
minded  to  try  his  hand  upon  something  altogether 
imaginary,  some  unhistorical  drama  of  passion.  But 
the  aversion  to  history  and  the  balancing  of  attractions 
did  not  last  long.  On  the  26th  of  April  he  wrote  to 
Goethe  as  follows: 

I  have  turned  my  attention  to  a  political  episode  of  Queen 
Elizabeth's  reign  and  have  begun  to  study  the  trial  of  Mary 
Stuart.  One  or  two  first-rate  tragic  motives  suggested  them- 
selves straightway,  and  these  have  given  me  great  faith  in  the 
subject,  which  incontestably  has  much  to  recommend  it.  It 
seems  to  be  especially  adapted  to  the  Euripidean  method,  which 
consists  in  the  completest  possible  development  of  a  situation  ; 
for  I  see  a  possibility  of  making  a  side  issue  out  of  the  trial,  and 
beginning  the  tragedy  directly  with  the  condemnation. 

This  time  the  historical  orientation  proceeded  very 
rapidly.     By  the  4th  of  June  he  was  ready  to  begin  the 

354 


Removal  to  Weimar  355 

first  act,  which  formed  his  principal  occupation  during 
the  next  two  months.  From  a  letter  to  Goethe,  written 
June  18,  it  is  clear  that  he  was  then  thinking  especially 
of  the  danger  of  sentimentalizing  his  heroine.  She 
was  to  excite  sympathy,  of  course,  but,  so  he  averred, 
it  was  not  to  be  of  the  tender,  personal  kind  that 
moves  to  tears.  It  was  to  be  her  fate  to  experience 
and  to  arouse  vehement  passions,  but  only  the  nurse 
was  to  *feel  any  tenderness  for  her'.  As  we  shall 
see,  he  did  not  remain  entirely  faithful  to  this  early 
conception  of  Mary's  character.  In  August,  the 
second  act  was  completed  and  the  third  begun.  Then 
came  a  long  interruption,  occasioned  by  the  demands 
of  the  'Almanac',  the  dangerous  illness  of  Frau 
Schiller, — a  lingering  puerperal  fever  following  the 
birth  of  her  third  child,  Caroline,  on  the  nth  of 
October, — and  finally  by  the  distractions  incident  to  a 
change  of  residence.  For  Schiller  had  now  decided 
to  make  his  winter  home  in  Weimar,  so  that  he  might 
be  near  the  theater.  He  was  heart  and  soul  in  the 
business  of  play-making,  and  looked  forward  to  devot- 
ing the  next  six  years  of  his  life  to  that  kind  of  work. 
To  Korner  he  did  not  confide  his  new  plan  at  first, 
though  he  wrote  of  it  often  to  Goethe. 

The  removal  to  Weimar  took  place  early  in  Decem- 
ber, having  been  made  possible  by  an  increase  of 
stipend  amounting  to  two  hundred  thalers.  In  grant- 
ing this  increase  Karl  August  intimated  that  it  might 
be  of  advantage  to  Schiller  as  a  dramatic  poet  if  he 
were  to  take  the  Weimarians  into  his  confidence  and 
discuss  his  plays  with  them.  *  What  is  to  influence 
society  ',  he  sagely  remarked,  *  can  be  better  fashioned 


356  Mary  Stuart 

in  society  than  in  isolation  * ;  and  he  added  a  very- 
gracious  expression  of  his  own  personal  friendliness. 
Schiller  thus  found  himself  once  more  virtually  a 
theater  poet.  The  Weimar  stage,  with  its  little  and 
large  problems,  became  the  focus  of  his  activity.  As 
a  good  repertory  was  of  prime  importance,  much  of  his 
time  went  to  the  making  of  translations  and  adapta- 
tions. Thus  he  began  a  version  of  Shakspere's  *  Mac- 
beth ',  and  had  not  finished  it  when  he  was  again 
prostrated  by  a  fresh  and  dangerous  attack  of  his 
malady.  After  the  completion  of 'Macbeth',  in  the 
spring  of  1800,  he  returned  to  *  Mary  Stuart ',  but  found 
his  progress  impeded  by  manifold  interruptions.  To 
escape  these  he  retired  to  the  quiet  of  Ettersburg,  and 
there,  early  in  June,  he  finished  his  tragedy  of  the 
Scottish  queen.  A  few  days  later,  June  14,  it  was 
played  at  Weimar,  and  from  that  time  to  this  it  has 
been  one  of  the  accepted  favorites  of  the  stage.  One 
who  saw  the  second  performance  has  left  it  on  record 
that  the  spectators  unanimously  declared  it  to  be  *  the 
most  beautiful  tragedy  ever  represented  on  the  German 
boards  '.  Madame  de  Stael  characterized  it  as  the 
most  moving  and  methodical  of  all  German 
tragedies. 

Schiller  conceives  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  as  a  beautiful 
sinner  who  has  repented.  Her  sins  are  grievous  and 
she  does  not  deny  or  extenuate  them.  But  they  are 
in  the  distant  past;  so  far  as  the  present  is  concerned, 
she  is  in  the  right.  She  has  come  to  England  seeking 
an  asylum,  but  instead  of  being  treated  as  a  queen  she 
has  been  confined  in .  one  prison  after  another  and 
finally  brought  to  Fotheringay,  where  she  is  subjected 


The  Fundamental  Difficulty  '         357 

to  petty  indignities  and  denied  the  consolations  of  the 
Catholic  religion.  She  has  been  charged  with  a  crime 
of  which  she  declares  herself  innocent,  has  been  brought 
to  trial  before  a  commission  of  judges  whose  jurisdiction 
she  indignantly  repudiates,  and  has  even  been  denied 
the  common  right  to  confront  the  witnesses  testifying 
against  her.  At  the  opening  of  the  play  she  does  not 
yet  know  the  verdict  of  the  court. 

This  is  the  substance  of  Schiller's  masterly  exposi- 
tion ;  and  the  effect  of  it,  upon  the  reader  or  spectator 
who  has  not  prejudged  the  case,  is  to  create  an  attitude 
of  compassion  for  the  prisoner.  But  the  sympathy  that 
one  feels  for  the  passive  victim  of  political  or  legal 
injustice  is  not  the  kind  which  Schiller  regarded  as 
*  tragic  '.  There  had  to  be  some  sort  of  *  guilt ',  and 
it  was  also  necessary  that  this  guilt  should  grow  out 
of  the  free  act  of  the  individual.  But  what  was  to  be 
done  with  a  helpless  captive  who  was  not  free  to  shape 
her  own  fate  ?  From  the  above-quoted  letter  to 
Goethe,  of  April  26,  1799,  it  is  inferable  that  Schiller 
at  first  thought  of  representing  the  trial  of  Mary.  He 
soon  saw,  however,  that  this  would  make  the  effect  of 
the  drama  turn  upon  political,  religious  and  legal  con- 
siderations of  an  abstruse  and  doubtful  character.  It 
would  be  with  the  play  as  it  always  had  been  with  the 
historical  controversy:  the  devout  Catholic  would 
regard  Queen  Mary  as  the  victim  of  brutal  tyranny, 
while  the  Protestant  would  think  her  deserving  of  her 
fate.  Schiller  did  not  wish  to  take  sides  boldly  in  a 
partisan  controversy,  but  to  make  a  tragedy  the  effect 
of  which  should  grow  out  of  universal  human  emotions. 
So  he  felt  happy  when  a  *  possibility  *  occurred  to  him 


3s8  Mary  Stuart 

of  dispensing  altogether  with  the  trial  and  beginning 
with  the  last  three  days  of  Mary's  life. 

The  expedient  that  had  suggested  itself  to  him  in- 
volved three  unhistorical  inventions:  first,  an  attempt 
to  escape,  in  which  Mary  and  her  cause  would  become 
involved  in  the  guilt  of  the  murderous  fanatic,  Mortimer ; 
secondly,  a  supposititious  love  for  Leicester,  who  would 
use  his  influence  with  Elizabeth  to  bring  about  a  meet- 
ing of  the  two  queens ;  and,  finally,  the  meeting  itself, 
in  which  Mary's  long  pent-up  passion  would  get  the 
better  of  her  and  betray  her  into  a  deadly  insult  of  her 
rival.  After  this  her  fate  would  appear  inevitable  and 
incurred  by  her  own  act.  This  concentration  of  the 
action  brought  with  it  certain  other  departures  from 
history  which  are  of  minor  importance.  Mary  was 
beheaded  in  February,  1587,  in  the  forty-fifth  year  of 
her  age.  At  the  time  of  her  death  her  captivity  in 
England  had  lasted  about  nineteen  years.  In  order  to 
account  for  the  infatuation  of  Mortimer  and  the  still 
lingering  passion  of  Leicester,  our  drama  imagines  her 
some  twenty  years  younger  than  she  actually  was.^ 

As  thus  made  over  by  Schiller,  Queen  Mary  is  a 
pathetic  rather  than  a  tragically  imposing  figure.  She 
appeals,  after  all,  to  the  sentimental  side  of  human 
nature  and  does  not  produce  that  effect  of  tragic  sub- 
limity which  is  produced  by  *  Wallenstein '.  The 
sympathy  that  she  excites  is  like  that  one  feels  for  a 
martyr.  We  see  in  her  a  royal  religieuse  who  is  perse- 
cuted by  powerful   and  contemptible  enemies  and  is 

*  In  a  letter  to  Iffland,  written  June  22,  1800,  Schiller  directed  that 
his  Queen  Elizabeth  be  represented  as  a  woman  thirty  years  old,  Mary 
as  twenty- five. 


Effect  of  Schiller's  Fictions  359 

unable  to  help  herself.  Her  death  is  decreed  from  the 
beginning  and  there  is  no  way  of  averting  it.  The 
object  of  fierce  contentions  on  the  part  of  others,  she 
herself  does  nothing,  and  can  do  nothing,  to  change 
the  predestined  course  of  events.  She  is  never  placed, 
as  the  real  tragic  hero  must  be,  before  an  alternative 
where  the  decision  is  big  with  fate.  When  the  end 
comes  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  let  her  renounce  all 
earthly  passion  and  face  the  headsman  as  a  purified 
saint.  So  far  as  she  is  concerned,  there  is  no  action 
at  all,  but  only  the  dramatic  development  of  a  situation.^ 
For,  after  all,  the  expedients  just  spoken  of  do  not 
hit  the  mark  exactly,  in  the  sense  of  making  the  heroine 
responsible  for  her  own  fate.  They  bring  in  some  new 
and  exciting  complications,  which,  however,  do  not 
affect  the  course  of  events  at  all.  The  catastrophe 
would  have  been  just  the  same  without  them.  This, 
nevertheless,  is  something  that  one  does  not  see  until 
we  reach  the  end  and  look  back.  Before  the  two 
queens  come  together  it  seems  as  if  the  meeting  might 
be  a  turning-point  in  Mary's  fate;  and  this  appearance 
is  all  that  Schiller  aimed  at.  In  a  letter  to  Goethe  he 
spoke  of  this  scene  as  '  impossible  ',  and  he  was  curious 
to  know  what  success  he  had  had  with  it.  By  this  he 
meant,  seemingly,  that  the  futility  of  the  scene,  as 
affecting  Mary's  fate,  was  predetermined  by  the  nature 
of  the  subject.^    Mary  was  to  die;  it  was  impossible  to 

^  The  thought  is  expressed  thus  by  Hamack,  "Schiller",  page  324  : 
"Der  eigentliche  tragische  Konflikt,  der  den  Helden  vor  grosze  Ent- 
scheidungen  stellt  und  endlich  in  sein  Verhangnis  hinabreiszt,  fehlt  in 
♦Maria  Stuart'.  Die  gefar.gene  KOnigin  befindet  sich  im  Konflikt  mit 
ihrer  unwUrdigen  auszeren  Lage,  aber  nicht  mit  sich  selbst." 

'  Compare,  however,  Fielitz,  *'  Studien  zu  Schillers  Dramen  ",  page  49. 


s6o  Mary  Stuart 

make  Elizabeth  pardon  her  or  treat  her  claims  with 
indulgence.  And  yet  it  was  necessary  to  create  the 
illusion  of  great  possibilities  hanging  upon  this  inter- 
view of  the  two  queens.  This  was  a  very  pretty 
problem  for  a  playwright,  and  the  skill  with  which  it  is 
solved  by  Schiller  is  the  most  admirable  feature  of  the 
whole  piece.  The  scene  is  not  great  dramatic  poetry, 
for  there  is  too  little  of  subtlety  in  it, — we  are  simply 
placed  between  light  and  darkness,  as  one  critic  says, 
— but  it  is  the  perfection  of  telling  workmanship  for  the 
stage. 

The  preparation  for  the  scene  begins  back  in  the 
first  act,  where  Mary  declares  to  Mortimer  that  Leicester 
is  the  only  living  man  who  can  effect  her  release. 
When  she  produces  her  picture  and  sends  it  to  him  for 
a  token  of  her  love,  we  begin  to  share  her  premonition 
that  something  may  indeed  be  hoped  for  if  her  cause 
is  taken  up  by  the  powerful  favorite  of  Elizabeth.  The 
lyric  passages  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  act  fix 
attention  altogether  upon  Mary's  longing  for  mere 
physical  freedom.  There  is  no  room  for  the  suspicion 
that  she  wishes  to  use  her  liberty  for  any  political  pur- 
pose whatever.  She  appears  as  a  noble  sufferer  whose 
whole  being  is  absorbed  in  the  delirious  joy  of  breath- 
ing once  more  the  free  air  of  heaven.  She  surmises 
rightly  that  her  unwonted  liberty  to  walk  in  the  park 
is  due  to  Leicester,  and  she  imagines  that  greater 
favors  are  in  store  for  her : 

They  mean  to  enlarge  the  confines  of  my  prison, 

By  little  favors  to  lead  up  to  greater, 

Until  at  last  I  see  the  face  of  him 

Whose  hand  shall  set  me  free  forevermore. 


Meeting  of  the  Queens  361 

And  the  hope  seems  reasonable.  May  not  the  queen 
of  England — so  one  is  inclined  to  speculate — be  moved 
to  pity  ?  May  she  not  be  persuaded  that  policy  is  on 
the  side  of  mercy  ?  May  she  not  at  least  postpone 
the  execution  of  the  death-sentence  and  gradually  in- 
crease her  prisoner's  liberty  ? 

When  Elizabeth  appears  it  is  quickly  made  evident 
that  these  hopes  are  vain.  Mary  humbles  herself  to 
no  purpose.  Her  enemy,  a  consummate  hypocrite 
herself,  sees  in  her  self-abasement  nothing  but  hypoc- 
risy. Mary's  earnest  pleading,  her  offer  to  renounce 
all  for  the  boon  of  freedom,  are  met  with  bitter  taunts 
and  accusations  which  culminate  in  the  galling  insult: 

To  be  the  general  beauty,  it  would  seem, 
One  needs  but  to  be  everybody's  beauty. 

Then  Mary  loses  her  self-control  and  throws  discretion 
to  the  winds.  In  a  wild  outburst  of  passionate  hate 
she  accuses  Elizabeth  of  secret  incontinence  and  calls 
her  bastard  and  usurper.  Thus  she  triumphs  in  the 
war  of  words,  for  her  enemy  retreats  in  speechless 
amazement;  but  there  is  no  more  room  for  hope  in  the 
clemency  of  Elizabeth.  The  prisoner's  fate  is  sealed 
even  without  the  murderous  attempt  of  the  fanatic 
Sauvage. 

It  must  be  repeated  that  the  whole  famous  scene  is 
better  contrived  for  the  groundlings  in  a  theater  than 
for  the  lover  of  great  dramatic  poetry.  Mary's  cres- 
cendo of  feeling,  from  humble  supplication  to  reckless 
defiance,  gives  an  excellent  opportunity  for  a  tragic 
actress,  but  the  whole  thing  is  rather  crass.  The  effect 
is  produced  by  confronting  Mary  with  a  vain  and  spite- 
ful termagant  bearing  the  name  of  the  great  English 


362  Mary  Stuart 

queen.  One  could  wish,  not  only  in  the  interest  of 
historical  truth,  the  obhgation  of  which  Schiller  denied, 
but  also  in  the  interest  of  poetic  beauty,  the  obligation 
of  which  he  regarded  as  paramount,  that  Elizabeth  had 
been  painted  here  in  less  repulsive  colors.  She  might 
have  been  allowed  to  show  a  trace  of  human,  or  even 
of  womanly,  feeling.  She  might  have  been  represented 
as  touched  for  the  moment  by  Mary's  entreaty,  and  as 
holding  out  to  her  some  small  hope  of  life  and  liberty, 
under  conditions  which  it  would  have  been  reasonable 
to  discuss.  If  she  had  been  so  portrayed  and  then 
later  brought  back  to  a  sterner  mood  by  the  attempt 
upon  her  own  life  and  the  discovery  of  Mortimer's  con- 
spiracy, the  final  result  would  have  been  just  the  same ; 
the  meeting  of  the  two  queens  would  have  served  even 
better  the  dramatic  purpose  which  it  was  meant  to 
serve,  and  we  should  have  had  from  it  a  noble  poetic 
effect  instead  of  a  crass  theatrical  effect.  The  pathos 
of  Mary's  position  would  have  been  increased,  because 
it  would  have  been  made  evident  that,  whatever  her 
own  inner  thoughts  and  purposes  might  be,  she  was 
a  standing  menace  to  the  English  monarchy.  Thus 
her  death  would  have  appeared  in  the  play  what  it  was 
in  fact, — a  measure  of  high  political  expediency  with 
which  petty  female  spite  had  nothing  to  do. 

It  is  natural  to  raise  the  query  whether  these  consid- 
erations, which  are  so  obvious  and  are  of  the  very  kind 
that  would  have  appealed  to  Schiller,  were  overlooked 
by  him  or  were  set  aside  for  reasons  of  his  own. 
Virtually  he  takes  the  Catholic  side  of  the  controversy. 
The  ugly  traits  of  Mary's  character,  while  we  cannot 
say  that  they  are  concealed  with  partisan  intent,  are 


Romantic  Tendencies  363 

so  wrought  into  the  picture  that  they  do  not  impress 
the  imagination  as  ugly  at  all.  They  are  consigned 
to  the  dim  limbo  of  the  past  and  have  the  effect  of 
winning  for  her  that  sympathy  which  human  nature  is 
always  ready  to  bestow,  in  art  if  not  in  life,  upon  the 
Magdalen  type.  On  the  other  hand,  the  ignoble  traits 
of  Queen  Elizabeth  are  brought  into  the  foreground 
and  made  the  most  of,  while  her  great  qualities  are 
hardly  more  than  adumbrated  in  the  picture.  The 
result  is  a  canonization  and  a  caricature;  and  one 
cannot  help  wondering  how  Schiller  was  brought 
thereto,  when  it  would  seem  that  his  Protestant  sym- 
pathies, as  we  have  known  him  hitherto,  should  have 
led  him  in  the  contrary  direction. 

The  key  to  the  riddle  is,  no  doubt,  that  he  had 
begun  to  feel  the  influence  of  the  Romantic  movement, 
which  was  well  under  way  when  *  Mary  Stuart '  was 
written.  The  influence  is  difficult  to  prove,  because 
Schiller  always  maintained  ostensibly  a  very  cool  and 
critical  attitude  toward  the  efforts  of  the  new  school. 
His  relations  with  its  leaders  were  not  intimate,  and 
one  of  them  at  least,  the  younger  Schlegel,  was  his 
particular  aversion.  Nevertheless  he  read  their  works; 
and  while  he  always  professed  to  be  but  little  edified, 
there  is  abundant  evidence  that  his  ideas  of  literary  art 
were  considerably  affected  by  the  new  propaganda. 
So,  too,  Goethe  was  never  a  partisan  of  the  Romanti- 
cists, and  he  often  spoke  derisively  of  them;  yet  when 
he  published  the  Second  Part  of  *  Faust ',  the  world  saw 
that  he  had  learned  from  them  all  there  was  to  be 
learned.  An  author  is  not  always  most  influenced  by 
that  which  he  consciously  approves. 


364  Mary  Stuart 

As  for  Schiller  there  was  much  in  common  between 
him  and  the  Romanticists.  He  had  worked  out  an 
aesthetic  religion  which  completely  satisfied  him.  In 
religious  dogma  of  any  kind  he  had  ceased  to  take  a 
practical  interest.  His  ethical  ideal  was  an  ideal  of  har- 
mony, of  equipoise.  His  critical  studies  had  cured  him 
of  his  one-sided  Hellenism,  and  his  historical  studies 
had  taught  him  that  the  Middle  Ages  were  not  without 
their  own  peculiar  greatness.  It  was  thus  natural 
enough  that  the  Catholicizing  drift  of  the  Romantic 
school  should  appeal  to  his  aesthetic  sympathies.  When 
a  man  of  poetic  temper  drifts  away  from  his  theological 
moorings  and  becomes  indifferent  to  positive  dogma, 
he  is  apt  to  value  the  historical  religions  according  to 
their  aesthetic  qualities.  That  is  best  which  has  the 
most  warmth  and  color  and  makes  the  strongest  appeal 
to  the  imagination. 

It  is  along  this  line  of  reflection  that  we  must  seek 
the  explanation  of  Schiller's  Catholicizing  tendency  in 
*  Mary  Stuart'.  Her  creed,  if  reduced  to  dogma, 
would  have  offended  his  intellect,  just  as  her  political 
claims  would  have  been  rejected  by  his  historical  judg- 
ment. But  he  saw  in  her  character  that  which  could 
be  poetically  transmuted  into  a  type  of  the  noble 
sufferer,  burdened  with  remorse,  fated  to  contend  with 
injustice,  and  betrayed  by  her  own  rebellious  nature ; 
but  triumphing  at  last  in  the  peaceful  assurance  that 
her  death  is  the  divinely  appointed  expiation  of  her 
sins.  The  drama  was  to  represent  a  process  of  inward 
purification, — the  attainment,  after  fierce  storms  and 
buffetings,  of  a  calm  haven  for  the  soul.  Queen  Mary 
was  to  appear  at  last  as  the  embodiment  of  all  the 


Pathos  of  the  Conclusion  365 

qualities  that  seem  most  noble  and  enviable  in  one  who 
*  *  feels  the  winnowing  wings  of  death  ' ' .  And  of  this 
idea  what  better  dramatic  setting  can  be  imagined  than 
the  ceremony  of  confession  and  absolution  in  accord- 
ance with  the  forms  of  the  Catholic  Church  ?  The 
solemn  searching  of  the  heart  gives  to  Mary's  character 
a  saintly  dignity,  as  of  one  already  beatified,  and 
invests  the  whole  scene  with  an  incomparable  pathos.^ 
Swinburne  makes  his  Mary  declare,  in  angry  scorn  of 
woman's  weakness,  that 

Even  in  death, 
As  in  the  extremest  evil  of  all  our  lives, 
We  can  but  curse  or  pray,  but  prate  and  weep, 
And  all  our  wrath  is  wind  that  works  no  wreck, 
And  all  our  fire  as  water. 

Schiller's  Mary  meets  her  fate  in  a  nobler  mood.  She 
sees  in  death  the  '  solemn  friend  '  who  comes  to  lift  the 
ancient  burden  from  her  soul.  Not  only  does  she  for- 
give and  bless  her  enemies,  but  she  sees  in  the  very 
injustice  of  her  death  a  part  of  the  divine  benediction : 

God  deems  me  fit,  through  this  unmerited  death, 
To  expiate  my  heavy  guilt  ol  yore. 

Such  a  sentiment,  it  must  be  admitted,  is  rather  too 
subhmated  to  harmonize  perfectly  with  the  political 
complications  that  precede.  We  seem  to  have  come 
suddenly  into  another  world;  and  so  we  have  in  truth, 
— ^the  world  of  medieval  mysticism.    That  which  begins 

*  Even  Macaulay,  who  was  certainly  not  the  man  to  be  captivated  by 
anything  in  the  scene  save  its  poetry,  thought  the  ''  Fotheringay  scenes 
in  the  fifth  act  .  .  .  equal  to  anything  dramatic  that  had  been  pro- 
duced  in  Europe  since  Shakspere." — Trevelyan,  "Life  and  Letters  of 
Lord  Macaulay  ",  II,  182. 


366  Mary  Stuart 

as  a  drama  of  conflicting  political  passions,  ends  as  a 
drama  of  mystical  edification.  The  rationalist  does 
not  see  how  the  divine  order  can  be  vindicated  by  the 
triumph  of  gross  injustice ;  nevertheless  he  recognizes 
that  the  ways  of  God  are  inscrutable,  and  he  knows  that 
such  ideas,  of  the  winning  of  peace  through  blood- 
atonement,  were  once  intensely  real  to  the  Christian 
world.  Schiller  requires  the  rationalist  to  return  in  his 
imagination  to  this  time  and  place  himself  in  the 
emotional  milieu  of  the  medieval  church. 

Returning  now,  in  the  light  of  these  considerations, 
to  the  famous  quarrel-scene  in  the  third  act,  we  see 
that  a  more  favorable  portrait  of  Elizabeth,  while  it 
would  have  had  the  advantage  pointed  out,  would  have 
weakened  the  final  effect  which  Schiller  wished  to  pro- 
duce. It  was  necessary  that  Mary  appear  as  the 
victim  of  injustice  in  order  that  her  saintly  triumph 
might  shine  with  the  greater  luster.  Moreover,  Mary's 
outburst  of  passion,  for  which  there  would  have  been 
no  room  if  her  enemy  had  been  given  a  nobler  charac- 
ter, was  needed  in  order  to  make  her  earlier  sins 
credible.  Without  that  scene  we  should  have  difficulty 
in  believing  that  so  excellent  a  lady  could  ever  have 
committed  those  crimes  of  hot  blood  which  weigh  upon 
her  soul.  All  this  means  that  a  noble-minded  Eliza- 
beth would  not  have  fallen  in  with  Schiller's  artistic 
idea,  but  it  hardly  justifies  him  in  making  her  the 
monster  that  she  appears.  In  making  her  heartless  he 
might  at  least  have  left  her  head  in  the  possession  of 
ordinary  common  sense.  Her  off-hand  employment 
of  the  stranger,  Mortimer,  as  an  assassin;  her  stagy 
signing  of  the  death-warrant,  after  a  speech  indicating 


The  Historical  Background  367 

that  she  acts  from  pusillanimous  motives  of  personal 
spite;  her  silly  comedy  with  Davison  about  the  execu- 
tion of  the  death-sentence ;  her  coquettish  airs  with  the 
wretched  Leicester, — these  are  repulsive  touches  which 
are  difficult  to  justify  on  any  aesthetic  grounds,  and  the 
total  effect  of  which  approaches  perilously  near  to 
caricature. 

'  Mary  Stuart '  may  be  described,  then,  as  a  tragedy 
of  self-conquest  in  the  presence  of  an  undeserved  death. 
The  stage  climax  is  the  meeting  of  the  two  queens  in 
the  third  act,  but  the  psychological  climax  occurs  in 
the  fifth  act,  when  Queen  Mary  gives  up  her  hopes  of 
freedom  and  of  life  and  welcomes  the  *  solemn  friend  ' 
who  is  to  lift  the  burden  from  her  soul.  In  working 
out  this  conception  Schiller  did  not  trouble  himself 
greatly  about  the  historical  verisimilitude  of  his  chief 
personages.  One  who  looks  for  the  real  Mary,  Eliza- 
beth, Burleigh  and  Leicester,  will  not  find  them  in  his 
pages.  The  principal  figures  are  drawn  with  less  im- 
partiality than  in  *  Wallenstein  ',  the  subjective  presence 
of  the  author  is  more  noticeable.  And  yet,  looked  at 
in  a  large  way,  the  play  is  an  excellent  piece  of  his- 
torical fresco-painting.  The  whole  spirit  of  the  time 
with  its  warring  passions,  its  intrigues  of  fanaticism,  is 
vividly  and  powerfully  brought  before  us.  The  author's 
partisanship  is  aesthetic  only,  not  religious  or  political. 
The  many  counts  in  the  long  indictment  of  Queen 
Mary,  the  motives  and  arguments  of  the  English 
government,  even  the  higher  traits  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
are  all  brought  out  in  the  course  of  the  play.  Nothing 
of  importance  is  neglected,  and  the  whole  complicated 
situation   is   made   admirably   clear.      The    historical 


368  Mary  Stuart 

background,  with  its  luminous  vistas  of  European  poli- 
tics, really  leaves  very  little  to  be  desired. 

Masterly,  too,  in  the  main,  is  the  constructive  skill 
with  which  all  this  history  is  brought  to  view  in  a 
dramatic  action  concentrated  into  the  last  three  days 
of  Queen  Mary's  life.  The  great  difficulty  which 
always  besets  the  'drama  of  the  ripe  situation  ', — to 
use  a  modern  phrase  for  a  thing  as  old  as  Euripides, 
— is  the  difficulty  of  explaining  the  past  without  forcing 
the  dialogue  into  unnatural  channels;  in  other  words, 
of  orienting  the  public  without  seeming  to  have  that 
object  in  view.  As  regards  this  merit  of  good  crafts- 
manship, *  Mary  Stuart '  is  here  and  there  vulnerable. 
For  example:  in  the  fourth  scene  of  the  first  act,  the 
nurse,  Hannah  Kennedy,  recounts  to  her  mistress  at 
great  length  the  latter's  past  sins  and  sufferings, 
describing  her  motives,  her  infatuation,  her  heart-burn- 
ings and  much  else  that  the  queen  must  know  far  better 
than  any  one  else  in  the  world.  Such  passages, 
obviously  intended  for  the  instruction  of  the  audience, 
were  permitted  by  the  traditions  of  the  drama,  but  they 
are  bad  for  the  illusion.  In  *  Wallenstein  '  they  are 
much  less  noticeable, — a  fact  which  indicates  that 
Schiller  was  now  disposed  to  make  his  labor  easier  by 
availing  himself  of  conventional  privileges.  In  most 
respects,  however,  the  technique  of  '  Mary  Stuart '  is 
excellent.  The  scenes  are  lively,  varied  and  very 
rarely  too  long.  Everything  is  well  articulated. 
Dramatic  interest  is  not  sacrificed  to  any  sort  of  private 
enthusiasm  or  special  pleading. 

One  who  reads  the  history  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots 
in  any  good  historian,   and   endeavors  to  follow  the 


Character  of  Mortimer   .  369 

maze  of  intrigues,  uprisings,  plots,  assassinations  and 
what  not,  is  impressed  by  no  other  characteristic  of  the 
age  more  strongly  than  by  its  complete  dissociation  of 
religion  from  humane  ethics.  The  religion  of  love  to 
one's  neighbor,  though  the  neighbor  be  an  enemy,  had 
become  a  fierce  fanaticism  which  scrupled  at  nothing 
and  recognized  no  fealty  higher  than  the  supposed 
secular  interest  of  the  church.  In  his  *  Mary  Stuart  in 
Scotland  '  Bjornson  makes  the  queen  put  to  Bothwell 
the  question :  '  You  are  surely  no  gloomy  Protestant, 
you  are  certainly  a  Catholic,  are  you  not  ?  '  To  which 
Bothwell  replies :  *  As  for  myself,  I  have  never  really 
figured  up  the  difference,  but  I  have  noticed  that  there 
are  hypocrites  on  both  sides. '  For  the  modern  man 
this  is  an  eminently  natural  point  of  view,  and  we 
might  have  expected,  from  all  we  know  of  Schiller, 
that  he  would  introduce  into  his  play  some  representa- 
tive of  this  sentiment.  Or  if  not  that,  we  might  have 
expected  some  representative  of  the  religion  of  love. 
Instead  of  either  we  have  a  romantic  youth  who  has 
forsworn  the  Protestant  creed  on  purely  aesthetic 
grounds. 

Mortimer  is  on  the  whole  the  most  interesting  of 
the  subordinate  characters.  He  was  obviously  sug- 
gested by  Babington,  but  the  coarse  fanatic  of  history 
was  too  repulsive  for  a  proper  champion  of  Schiller's 
idealized  heroine.  So  the  name  was  changed,  and  we 
get  an  imaginary  youth  who  has  been  intoxicated  by 
the  glamour  of  the  Catholic  forms  as  he  has  seen  them 
at  Rome.  The  description  of  Mortimer's  conversion, 
— his  sudden  resolve  to  abjure  the  dismal,  art-hating 
religion  of  the  incorporeal  word,  and  to  go  over  to 


370  Mary  Stuart 

the  communion  of  the  joyous, — is  one  of  the  telling 
declamatory  passages  of  the  play.  With  the  sentiment 
expressed  Schiller  can  have  had,  in  the  bottom  of  his 
heart,  but  little  sympathy;  but  his  artistic  nature  had 
begun  to  respond  to  the  Romantic  propaganda.  For 
the  rest,  Mortimer  is  not  a  very  convincing  creation. 
One  is  a  little  surprised  that  a  youth  who  purports  to 
be  so  very  soft-hearted,  so  very  susceptible  to  the 
religion  of  the  beautiful,  should  undertake  so  jauntily 
the  role  of  murderer.  As  for  his  amorous  passion,  that 
is  credible  enough  if,  in  accordance  with  Schiller's 
direction,  we  think  of  Queen  Mary  as  twenty-five  years 
old.  But  in  that  case  one's  imagination  has  difficulty 
with  that  perspective  of  years  which  have  accumulated 
the  ancient  burden  of  guilt. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 
Zhc  /iBaiD  of  ©rleane 

Die  SchSnheit  ist  fur  ein  gliickliches  Geschlecht ;  ein  un- 
gliickliches  musz  man  erhaben  zu  riihren  suchen. — Letter  of 
July  26,  1800. 

It  was  well  observed  by  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt 
that  Schiller's  plays  are  not  repetitions  of  the  same 
thing,  such  as  talent  is  wont  to  produce  when  it  has 
once  met  with  a  success,  but  the  productions  of  a  spirit 
that  ever  kept  wrestling  anew  with  the  demands  of  art. 
With  each  fresh  attempt  he  essayed  a  really  new  theme, 
and  taken  as  a  whole  his  works  exhibit  a  remarkable 
variety  of  substance.  Each  one  has  its  own  indi- 
viduality, its  own  atmosphere.  And  he  himself 
wished  that  this  should  be  so ;  it  was  a  part  of  his  study 
to  avoid  repeating  himself.  *  One  must  not  become 
the  slave  of  any  general  concept', — so  he  wrote  to 
Goethe  in  July,  1800,  —  *  but  have  the  courage  to  invent 
a  new  form  for  each  new  matter  and  keep  the  type -idea 
flexible  in  one's  mind.' 

These  words  were  penned  with  direct  reference  to 
'  The  Maid  of  Orleans  ' ,  which  was  begun  very  soon 
after  the  completion  of  '  Mary  Stuart ' .  Whether 
Schiller  then  had  in  mind  all  those  elements  which 
subsequently  led  to  the  sub-title,  *  a  romantic  tragedy  ', 

371 


372 


The  Maid  of  Orleans 


is  not  at  all  certain;  it  would  be  natural  to  surmise  that 
he  may  have  thought  at  first  of  a  drama  within  the 
lines  of  authentic  tradition.  However,  we  know  very 
little  in  detail  about  the  genesis  of  this  particular  play. 
The  letter  just  quoted  tells  of  the  usual  initial  difficulty 
in  concentrating  the  action,  the  interesting  occurrences 
being  so  widely  separated  in  time  and  place.  Later 
letters  hardly  do  more  than  occasionally  to  report 
progress;  they  do  not  discuss  artistic  questions,  nor 
give  any  information  as  to  books  read.  Three  acts 
were  finished  by  mid-winter,  and  the  whole  on  the  1 5th 
of  April,  1 80 1.  Schiller  had  now  learned  his  routine; 
he  felt  confidence  in  himself  and  went  ahead  in  his  own 
way,  with  but  little  discussion  of  his  plans.  What  he 
finally  gave  to  the  world  is  a  tragedy  in  which  he  pro- 
ceeds still  further  along  the  path  of  romantic  idealiza- 
tion,— proceeds  indeed  so  far  that  one  can  no  longer 
follow  him  without  some  rather  serious  misgivings. 

The  French  peasant  girl  becomes  an  ambassadress 
of  heaven,  gifted  with  second  sight  and  the  power  of 
working  miracles.  She  not  only  leads  the  French 
troops  in  battle,  but  she  herself  fights  with  a  magic 
sword  and  kills  English  soldiers  with  the  ruthlessness 
of  a  veteran  in  slaughter.  Through  it  all,  however,  she 
is  supposed  to  remain  a  tender-hearted  and  lovable 
maiden,  such  as  the  highest  officers  of  France  may  wish 
to  marry.  By  the  command  of  the  Holy  Virgin,  from 
whom  her  mission  and  power  derive,  she  is  bound  to 
refrain  from  all  earthly  love.  A  momentary  tender- 
ness for  the  English  general,  Lionel,  which  leads  her 
to  spare  his  life,  presents  itself  to  her  conscience  as  an 
infraction  of  the  divine  command.     She  is  overwhelmed 


Schifler's  Johanna  373 

with  remorse  and  loses  all  her  power.  Arm  and  soul 
are  paralyzed.  Taxed  by  her  superstitious  father  with 
witchcraft,  she  cannot  find  speech  to  defend  herself 
and  imagines  that  a  thunder-clap  is  heaven's  testimony 
against  her.  Then  she  wanders  about  as  a  helpless 
and  disgraced  fugitive  and  is  captured  by  English 
soldiers.  With  fettered  hands  she  is  compelled  to 
witness  a  new  battle,  in  which  her  countrymen, 
deprived  of  her  aid,  are  about  to  be  worsted.  But 
through  adversity  she  has  been  purged  of  her  sin. 
Her  self-confidence  returns,  and  with  it  her  miraculous 
power.  By  the  efficacy  of  prayer  she  breaks  her 
chains  and  rushes  into  the  fray.  Her  reappearance 
brings  victory  to  the  French  arms,  but  she  herself  is 
mortally  wounded  and  dies  in  glory  on  the  battle-field. 
It  is  evident  that  such  a  conception  carries  us  back 
into  the  dreamland  of  pious  romance.  It  presupposes 
a  world  in  which  things  did  not  happen  as  they  happen 
now ;  in  which  the  incredible  is  assumed  to  be  real  and 
the  course  of  events  is  shaped  by  miracle.  To  be  sure, 
miracle  is  but  sparingly  used  in  the  dramatic  action 
itself,  and  the  totality  of  the  play  is  only  a  little  more 
wonderful  than  the  Maid's  actual  history  as  given  by 
authentic  records.  Johanna's  vision  of  the  Virgin  is 
merely  described  retrospectively  and  is  parallel  to  the 
Voices  of  the  historical  Joan.  So  too  her  recognition 
of  the  King,  whom  she  has  never  seen  before;  her 
reading  of  his  mind ;  her  wonderful  influence  over  the 
French  army,  and  much  more  of  the  kind,  are  part  of 
a  well-authenticated  tradition  with  which  the  skeptical 
mind  must  make  its  peace  as  best  it  can.  And  the  feat 
is  not  altogether  easy.     The  modern  rationalist  will 


374 


The  Maid  of  Orleans 


say,  and  is  no  doubt  right  in  saying,  that  if  we  knew 
all  the  pertinent  facts  accurately  from  first  to  last,  the 
Maid's  story  would  fit  perfectly  into  our  scheme  of 
scientific  knowledge  and  would  appear  no  more  mys- 
terious than  other  stories  of  obsession,  genius  and 
devotion.  Still  the  fact  remains  that  upon  ordinary 
human  nature,  without  regard  to  religious  preposses- 
sions, the  record  of  the  Maid's  life,  as  brought  out  at 
her  trial,  makes  an  impression  of  the  marvelous.  This 
is  quite  enough  for  the  purposes  of  a  dramatic  poet. 
But  when  Schiller  introduces  a  magic  sword ;  when  he 
makes  his  heroine  talk  with  a  ghost  upon  the  battle- 
field, and  break  her  heavy  fetters  by  the  power  of 
prayer;  and  when  we  not  merely  hear  these  things 
reported,  but  see  them, — then  we  are  clearly  in  the 
realm  of  pure  miracle. 

Schiller's  ultra-romantic  treatment  of  the  Maid's 
story  has  often  been  sharply  criticised,  even  by  those 
who  are  in  the  main  friendly  to  his  genius ;  while  those 
who  are  not  friendly  have  always  seen  in  it  the  com- 
plete flowering  of  his  worst  tendencies.  Critics  have 
debated  at  great  length  the  question  whether  he  was 
*  justified  '  in  introducing  the  supernatural  at  all. 
They  have  fallen  back  upon  the  ghost  in  '  Hamlet '  for 
a  precedent  and  have  tried  to  illuminate  the  subject 
with  the  light  of  Lessing's  famous  comparison  of 
Shakspere's  ghost  with  Voltaire's  in  *  Semiramis '. 
Others  have  been  shocked  by  Schiller's  bold  departure 
from  history  at  the  close.  On  a  first  reading  of  *  The 
Maid  of  Orleans  ',  Macaulay  recorded  in  his  journal  an 
opinion  that  ' '  the  last  act  was  absurd  beyond  descrip- 
tion.    Schiller  might  just  as  well  have  made  Wallen- 


Attitude  of  the  Critics  375 

stein  dethrone  the  emperor  and  reign  himself  over 
Germany — or  Mary  become  Queen  of  England  and 
cut  off  Elizabeth's  head — as  make  Joan  fall  in  the 
moment  of  victory. ' '  ^ 

Now  opinions  of  this  kind  have  a  certain  interest  for 
the  student  of  literature,  but  it  is  best  not  to  take  them 
too  seriously.  A  dramatist  is  '  justified  '  if  his  inten- 
tion is  good  and  he  succeeds  in  it.  The  proof  of  the 
pudding  is  not  in  the  cook's  recipe.  If  any  dramatist 
in  the  wide  world  chooses,  for  reasons  of  his  own,  to 
experiment  with  an  imaginary  reversal  of  the  verdict 
of  history,  there  is  no  abstract  reason  why  he  should 
not  do  so.  It  is  just  as  well,  as  Schiller  said,  to  *  keep 
the  type-idea  flexible  in  one's  mind', — especially 
when  we  know  that  his  experiment  was  received  with 
ecstasy  at  its  first  performance  and  has  ever  since  held 
its  place  in  the  affection  of  German  play-goers.  They 
are  not  troubled  by  its  irrationalitiee,  but  receive  them 
with  pious  awe,  as  Schiller  intended.  For  the  reader, 
too,  ^  The  Maid  of  Orleans  '  has  a  deep  and  perennial 
fascination.  Theorize  about  it  as  we  may,  it  is  a  great 
popular  classic,  which  has  exerted  an  enormous  educa- 
tive influence  and  proves  how  thoroughly  its  author 
knew  the  heart  of  the  German  people. 

It  is  perfectly  safe  to  conjecture,  even  without  docu- 
mentary evidence,  that  when  Schiller  began  to  think 
of  Joan  the  Maid  as  the  possible  heroine  of  a  tragedy, 
his  first  perplexity  related  to  the  question  of  her 
*  guilt '.  This  was  for  him  an  indispensable  ingredient 
of  the  tragic,  whatever  later  theorists  may  think  of  it. 

*  Trevelyan,  "The  Life  and  Letters  of  Lord  Macaulay  ",  II,  249. 


376  The  Maid  of  Orleans 

Althougn,  as  we  have  seen,  he  contemned  the  bondage 
of  general  concepts,  he  never  came  to  the  point  of 
imagining  a  tragedy  without  'tragic  guilt'.  But  the 
]  story  of  Joan  offers  no  suggestion  of  guilt  in  any  sense 
I  whatever,  — she  was  the  innocent  victim  of  groveling 
superstition  playing  into  the  hands  of  insane  political 
hate.  For  modern  sentiment,  Catholic  and  Protestant 
alike,  and  quite  independently  of  the  view  one  may 
take  of  her  claims  to  divine  illumination,  her  death  at 
the  stake  was  simply  a  horrible  and  revolting  wrong. 
In  comparison  with  those  who  put  her  to  death  she  was 
an  angel  of  light.  To  follow  the  lines  of  history  here 
was  for  Schiller  unthinkable,  since  the  end  would  have 
been  a  mad  fatality,  leaving  no  room  for  any  feeling 
of  acquiescence  in  the  wise  ordering  of  the  world.  If 
the  story  of  Joan  was  to  yield  a  tragedy  at  all,  it  was 
necessary  to  have  recourse  to  some  bold  invention 
which  should  bring  her  fate  into  harmony  with  the 
central  rightness  of  things.^ 

Schiller  solves  the  problem  in  the  terms  of  religious 
mysticism :  he  endows  his  Johanna  with  a  supernatural 

*  According  to  Bottiger,  whose  statements  are  not  always  trustworthy 
in  matters  of  detail,  Schiller  said  to  him  in  November,  1801,  that  he  had 
at  one  time  planned  three  different  plays  on  the  subject  of  the  Maid  of 
Orleans,  and  that  he  would  have  executed  all  three  if  he  had  had  time. 
One  of  these  was  to  have  been  a  historical  tragedy,  with  Johanna  dying 
at  the  stake  in  Rouen. — This  can  hardly  mean  anything  more  than  that 
Schiller  was  in  doubt  for  a  while  as  to  the  best  treatment  of  his  theme. 
The  idea  of  his  actually  making  three  different  plays  on  the  same  sub- 
ject is  quite  too  preposterous.  His  promise,  in  a  letter  of  March  I, 
1802,  that  */  he  should  write  a  second  *  Maid  of  Orleans ',  Goschen 
should  publish  it,  is  only  an  author's  playful  '  jollying  *  of  a  friendly 
publisher.  The  passage  from  Bttttiger  is  quoted  at  length  by  Boxberger 
in  his  Introduction  to  *  The  Maid  of  Orleans '  (KUrschners  Deutsche 
National-Littcratur,  Vol.  CXXII,  second  part,  page  211). 


Johanna^s  Tragic  Guilt  377 

power  dependent  upon  her  renunciation  of  earthly 
love,  and  then  makes  her  fall  in  love  contrary  to  the 
divine  command.  In  one  of  her  lonely  vigils  under 
the  '  holy  oak  '  the  Virgin  appears  to  her  and  bids 
her  go  forth  and  destroy  the  enemies  of  her  country 
and  crown  the  king  at  Rheims.  When  Johanna  asks 
how  a  gentle  girl  can  hope  to  accomplish  such  a  work, 
Mary  replies, 

A  maiden  chaste 

Can  bring  to  pass  all  glorious  things  on  earth 

If  only  she  renounces  earthly  love. 

Thus  far  we  are  close  enough  to  tradition ;  for  the 
historical  Joan,  who  habitually  called  herself  the  Maid, 
knew  very  well  that  love  and  marriage  would  be  fatal 
to  her  mission.  Moreover,  the  idea  of  a  non-natural 
power  attaching  to  the  state  of  virginity  is  sufficiently 
familiar  both  to  Christian  and  to  Pagan  story.  From 
this  conception  it  is  no  very  far  cry  to  the  idea  that  the 
very  thought  of  love,  bringing  with  it  a  sense  of  guilt, 
might  cause  an  impairment  of  the  maiden's  divinely 
bestowed  strength.  These  are  mystical  ideas,  but  the 
mysticism  is  of  a  kind  familiar  to  the  imagination  of 
medieval  Europe  and  therefore  quite  permissible  to  a 
poet  who  had  set  out  to  romanticize.  If,  therefore, 
Schiller  had  made  his  heroine  fall  in  love  in  human 
fashion,  and  had  then  connected  this  lapse  from  virginal 
ideality  a  little  more  clearly  with  the  final  catastrophe, 
there  could  be  no  reasonable  objection  to  his  funda- 
mental idea,  and  we  should  have,  probably,  the  best 
imaginative  basis  for  a  romantic  tragedy  on  the  story 
of  Joan  of  Arc.  One  has  no  right  to  play  the  rational- 
ist in  such  a  matter  and  argue  that  falling  in  love  is  no 


37S  The  Maid  of  Orleans 

sin  and  cannot  be  felt  as  a  sin  by  the  modern  mind. 
It  can  be  so  felt  by  the  modern  imagination,  and  that 
is  quite  enough. 

As  the  play  stands,  however,  it  must  be  allowed 
that  the  demand  made  upon  the  imagination  is  quite 
too  severe.  The  love-incident  is  preposterous  in  itself 
and  a  mere  episode  at  that,  serving  no  purpose  finally 
but  that  of  a  picturesque  contrast.  It  is  a  sort  of  thing 
which  one  can  put  up  with  very  well  in  a  romantic 
opera,  but  not  so  well  in  a  serious  drama.  To  begin 
with,  Schiller  makes  his  heroine  a  supernatural  being. 
His  Johanna  is  not  a  peasant  girl  who  imagines  herself 
the  bearer  of  a  divine  mission,  and  by  the  human 
qualities  of  purity,  bravery,  devotion  and  self-confidence, 
exerts  a  seemingly  magic  influence  upon  the  French 
army, — but  she  is  actually  endowed  with  superhuman 
powers.  She  carries  a  charmed  sword  which,  against 
her  will,  guides  itself  miraculously  in  her  hand  to  the 
work  of  slaughter.  No  enemy  can  withstand  her. 
To  all  Englishmen  she  is  incarnate  Death.  In  the  full 
frenzy  of  combat  she  meets  Lionel — for  the  first  time. 
They  fight  and  she  strikes  his  sword  from  his  hand. 
Then,  as  he  closes  with  her,  she  seizes  his  plume  from 
behind,  lifts  his  helmet  and  draws  her  sword  to  cut  off 
his  head.  As  his  comely  face  is  bared  her  heart  fails 
her,  her  arm  sinks  and  the  whole  mischief  is  done. 
No  wonder  that  an  early  critic  objected  to  a  tragedy 
turning  thus  upon  the  weak  fastening  of  a  helmet ! 

It  is  difficult  to  justify  such  a  scene  upon  any  theory 
of  poetic  art.  The  romantic  drama  since  Schiller's 
time  has  served  up  many  a  greater  marvel  than  this ; 
but  it  produces  a  truly  poetic  effect  only  by  keeping 


The  Scene  with  Lionel 


379 


within  the  limits  of  tradition.  The  poet  who  deals  with 
Siegfried  and  Brunhilde,  or  with  Lohengrin  or  Faust, 
may  very  properly  require  us  to  accept  the  miracles 
which  pertain  in  each  case  to  the  saga.  But  such  a 
being  as  Schiller's  Johanna  is  found  in  no  saga;  she  is 
a  purely  arbitrary  creation.  A  very  thoughtful  German 
critic,  Bellermann,  attempts  to  defend  our  love-episode 
by  showing  how  Schiller  took  good  care  in  the  preced- 
ing scenes  to  depict  his  heroine  as  susceptible  to  the 
tender  emotions  of  her  sex ;  in  other  words,  to  depict 
her  as  a  maiden  who  might  conceivably  love  and  be 
loved.  But  earthly  maidens  do  not  suddenly  fall  in 
love  with  their  mortal  enemies  upon  the  battle-field  ; 
and  when  a  celestial  amazon  like  Johanna  does  so,  one 
can  only  imagine  that  she  has  been  mysteriously  for- 
saken by  her  Protectress  in  the  skies.  In  that  case, 
however,  the  fault  lies  with  heaven.  It  is  really  quite 
futile  to  discuss  the  artistic  reasonableness  of  this  scene, 
since  Johanna's  supernatural  character  takes  her  out- 
side the  range  of  human  psychology.  If  one  likes  it 
and  is  touched  by  it,  very  well;  but  a  prudent  poet 
might  well  have  had  some  regard  for  the  very  large 
number  of  people  who  would  find  such  a  scene  ridic- 
ulous rather  than  touching. 

One  could  wish,  in  fine,  that  Schiller  had  omitted 
his  disturbing  supernaturalism  altogether.  If  it  was 
necessary  that  his  heroine  fall  in  love,  one  could  wish 
that  he  had  let  her  affections  fasten  humanly  upon  the 
good  Raimond  or  some  other  honest  Frenchman. 
And  he  might  well  have  spared  us  the  Black  Knight, 
— that  revenant  ghost  of  Talbot,  who  comes  to  frighten 
Johanna  but  does  not  succeed,  and  whose  function  in 


38o  The  Maid  of  Orleans 

the  economy  of  the  play  remains  in  the  end  somewhat 
mysterious.  Had  he  left  out  these  things,  the  real 
greatness  of  the  play  would  have  suffered  not  a  whit, 
and  the  artistic  idea  which  kindled  his  imagination 
would  have  found  a  no  less  noble  expression.  That 
idea  was  to  reproduce  the  spirit  of  the  epoch  which 
saw  the  birth  of  French  patriotism.  He  wished  to 
bring  before  his  rationalizing  contemporaries  a  picture 
of  the  Middle  Ages  as  a  time  when,  to  quote  the  words 
of  a  recent  American  writer,  *  *  life  was  lived  passion- 
ately and  imaginatively  under  haunted  heavens  ".^ 

What  thoughts  were  agitating  him  at  the  very  time 
when  *  The  Maid  of  Orleans  '  was  taking  shape  in  his 
mind  can  be  seen  from  an  interesting  letter  which  he 
wrote  to  a  certain  Professor  Siivern,  who  had  favored 
him  with  a  critique  of  '  Wallenstein '.  Schiller 
answered  under  date  of  July  26,  1800,  and  one  para- 
graph of  his  reply  runs  as  follows : 

I  share  your  unconditional  admiration  of  the  Sophoclean  trag- 
edy, but  it  was  a  phenomenon  of  its  time,  which  cannot  come 
again.  It  was  the  living  product  of  a  definite,  individual  pres- 
ent ;  to  force  it  as  a  standard  and  a  pattern  upon  an  entirely 
different  epoch  would  be  to  kill  rather  than  to  quicken  art,  which 
must  always  come  into  being  and  do  its  work  as  a  living  dynamic 
influence.  Our  tragedy,  if  we  had  such  a  thing,  has  to  wrestle 
with  the  time's  impotence,  laziness  and  lack  of  character,  and 
with  a  vulgar  mental  habit.  It  must  therefore  exhibit  force  and 
character.  It  must  endeavor  to  stir  and  uplift  the  feelings,  but 
not  to  resolve  them  into  calm.  Beauty  is  for  a  happy  race  ;  an 
unhappy  race  one  must  seek  to  move  by  sublimity. 

These  words,    which   contain   implicitly  the  whole 
Romantic  confession  of  faith,  give  the  right  point  of 
*  Lewis  E.  Gates,  "Studies  and  Appreciations." 


Schillcr^s  Poetic  Intention  381 

view  from  which  to  judge  '  The  Maid  of  Orleans  ' . 
Schiller  felt  that  the  need  of  the  hour  was  to  escape 
from  the  banality  of  conventional  ideas  and  feel  the 
thrill  of  sympathy  with  great,  overmastering  emotions. 
To-day  this  seems  a  very  simple  and  obvious  matter, 
because  we  have  learned  to  think  of  the  imaginative 
appeal  of  poetry  as  the  corner-stone  of  the  temple. 
But  a  hundred  years  ago  the  outlook  was  different. 
Notwithstanding  the  revolt  which  Goethe  and  Schiller 
had  themselves  led  against  the  self-complacent  rational- 
ism of  the  century,  the  old  spirit  was  still  potent  even 
in  Germany,  where  the  reaction  first  gathered  force. 
Among  the  intellectual  classes  religion  had  well-nigh 
ceased  to  be  reckoned  with  as  a  mystic  passion  of  the 
soul.  Several  decades  of  tolerance, — practically  an 
excellent  method  for  keeping  the  sectaries  from  one 
another's  throats, — had  produced  a  public  sentiment 
which  looked  with  mild  contempt  upon  all  religious 
fervors.  When  Schleiermacher  published  his  famous 
*  Discourses  on  Religion  ',  in  the  year  1799,  he 
addressed  them  *  to  the  cultivated  among  its  despisers  ', 
— which  was  only  his  phrase  for  what  we  should  call 
the  general  public. 

Nor  was  the  case  very  different  with  respect  to 
another  mystic  passion,  which  derives  from  the  tribal 
instinct  of  the  primitive  savage  and  which  the  civilized 
man  calls  patriotism.  The  lesson  of  Frederick  the 
Great  had  not  been  entirely  forgotten,  but  it  was  lying 
inert, — waiting  to  be  kindled  into  fiery  zeal  by  the 
humiliations  of  Jena  and  Tilsit  and  Wagram.  Schiller 
was  no  mystic,  nor  was  he,  in  our  narrow  sense,  a 
patriot;  but  he  had  a  poet's  feeling  for  the  sublimity 


382  The  Maid  of  Orleans 

of  great  and  passionate  devotion.  He  was  a  man  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  as  thinker  he  understood  full 
well  its  imperishable  claims  to  honor ;  but  as  poet  it 
was  not  for  him  to  fall  into  that  cynical,  vulgarizing 
drift  which  had  led  the  greatest  Frenchman  of  his  day 
to  make  Joan  of  Arc  the  butt  of  his  lewd  wit.  Voltaire 
saw  in  her  one  of  the  pious  frauds  of  that  Infamous  he 
was  bent  on  crushing;  for  her  national  mission  he  had 
little  feeling,  because  of  his  fixed  idea  that  nothing 
good  could  have  come  from  the  ages  of  superstition.^ 
Schiller  saw  in  her,  and  was  the  first  great  poet  to  see 
what  all  the  world  sees  now,  the  heroic  deliverer  of 
her  country  from  a  hated  foreign  invader.  And  so  he 
threw  down  the  gauntlet  to  his  century  and  lifted  the 
ludibrium  of  the  French  wits  to  the  pedestal  of  an 
inspired  savior  of  France.  It  was  a  great  deed  of 
poetry;  in  the  presence  of  which  a  right-minded  critic, 
after  duly  airing  his  little  complaints,  as  critics  must, 
will  be  disposed  to  doff  his  hat  and  say  Bravo !  Well 
might  Schiller  declare  in  the  stanzas  entitled  *  The 
Maid  of  Orleans  ' : 

The  world  brooks  not  nobility, — disdaining, 
Defaming,  smirching,  goes  its  vulgar  gait ; — 

But  fear  thou  not,  true  hearts  are  still  remaining, 
To  love  thee  for  the  heart  that  made  thee  great. 

In  its  inmost  essence,  then,  *  The  Maid  of  Orleans  ' 
is  a  drama  of  patriotism.  It  is  Johanna's  love  of 
country  that  gives  her  a  measure  of  human  interest,  in 
spite  of  the  supernaturalism  that  invests  her.  Were 
she  not  thus  the  representative  of  a  passion  that  is 
intensely  real,  and  that  has  come  to  be  regarded,  for 
*  Compare  Morley's  *♦  Voltaire  ",  Chapter  III. 


A  Drama  of  Patriotism  383 

better  or  for  worse,  as  preeminently  noble,  she  would 
now  possess  but  very  languid  interest  for  the  sublunary 
mind.  Her  mystical  attributes  and  her  unthinkable 
love-affair  would  place  her  beyond  the  range  of  natural 
sympathy.  As  it  is,  one  is  made  to  forget,  or  at  least 
to  pass  hghtly  over,  everything  else  but  her  love  for 
France.  She  wins  favor  by  her  patriotic  devotion, 
and  when  the  end  comes  one  thinks  of  her  under  the 
familiar  rubric  of  the  hero  dying  for  his  country.  The 
episode  with  Lionel  and  the  humiliation  of  the 
Cathedral  scene  have  all  been  forgotten,  and  one  does 
not  mentally  connect  these  things  with  Johanna's  death 
in  any  way  whatsoever.  Her  death  is  sufficiently  pro- 
vided for  from  the  beginning  in  her  own  fatalistic 
prevision : 

Johanna  goes  and  never  shall  return. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  a  heroine  who  excites 
interest  chiefly  by  virtue  of  her  patriotic  sentiments 
and  the  bravery  of  her  conduct  does  not  represent  the 
highest  type  of  poetic  creation.  The  muse  will  always 
lend  virtue  and  bravery  to  any  common  poetaster  for 
the  mere  asking ;  but  she  does  not  so  readily  vouchsafe 
a  convincing  semblance  of  complex  human  nature. 
A  distinctly  human  Johanna,  with  a  definite  girlish 
individuality  and  a  character  all  her  own, — such  as 
Goethe  might  have  given  us  had  he  turned  his  thoughts 
in  that  direction, — would  have  been  a  higher  and  a 
more  difficult  achievement  than  the  schematic  creature 
of  Schiller's  imagination.  Such  a  Johanna,  however, 
would  hardly  be  thinkable  on  the  stage:  the  final 
horror  of  her  fate  would  be  intolerable  in  the  visible 


384  The  Maid  of  Orleans 

representation,  while  to  leave  it  unrepresented  would 
be  to  admit  the  reasonableness  of  Schiller's  departure 
from  history.  Shall  we  then  take  refuge  in  the  posi- 
tion that  the  Maid's  story  is  not  adapted  to  dramatic 
treatment  at  all  ?  Such  a  position  is  at  once  rendered 
absurd  by  the  perennial  popularity  and  effectiveness  of 
Schiller's  play.  Until  some  great  realistic  poet  shall 
prove  the  contrary  by  deeds,  the  mere  critic  is  certainly 
justified  in  holding  that,  whatever  may  be  thought  of 
his  love-episode,  the  ghost  and  the  miraculous  escape 
from  bondage,  the  general  requirements  of  the  theme 
are  best  met  by  Schiller's  romantic  treatment. 

Turning  from  the  heroine  to  the  other  characters, 
one  finds  but  little  that  invites  discussion.  Johanna  is 
the  central  sun  of  the  system,  and  in  the  romantic  light 
that  goes  out  from  her  the  others  seem  rather  pale  and 
uninteresting.  Father  Thibaut  impresses  one  in  the 
Prologue  as  a  little  too  refined,  intelligent  and  far- 
sighted  for  the  role  of  besotted  superstition  and  mis- 
understanding which  he  subsequently  plays  in  the 
cathedral  scene.  La  Hire  and  the  Duke  of  Burgundy 
and  the  Bastard  of  Orleans,  who  preserves  only  a  sug- 
gestion of  the  rugged  soldier  that  once  bore  his  name, 
are  there  only  to  illustrate  the  divine  magic  of  the 
Maid.  Two  of  them  wish  to  marry  her,  and  when  we 
add  the  Englishman,  Lionel,  and  the  French  peasant, 
Raimond,  we  have  a  quartet  of  lovers.  Verily  the 
little  god  Cupido  would  seem  to  be  something  too 
prominent  and  ubiquitous  for  a  military  drama.  His- 
tory required  that  the  Dauphin  should  be  a  weakling, 
and  such  he  is  in  the  play;  but  he  too  is  romanticized 
through  his  devotion  to  the  tender  and  soulful  Agnes. 


The  Subordinate  Characters  385 

More  strongly  drawn,  if  not  exactly  more  lifelike, 
than  any  of  these,  are  the  sensual  old  fury,  Isabeau, 
and  the  English  general,  Talbot,  whose  fierce  valedic- 
tory to  this  folly-ridden  earth  is  deservedly  famous : 

Soon  it  is  over,  and  to  earth  go  back — 
To  earth  and  the  eternal  sun — the  atoms 
Erstwhile  combined  in  me  for  pain  and  joy. 
And  of  the  mighty  Talbot,  whose  renown 
But  now  filled  all  the  world,  nothing  remains 
Except  a  handful  of  light  dust.     So  ends 
The  life  of  man — and  all  we  bear  away, 
As  booty  from  the  battle  of  existence. 
Is  comprehension  of  its  nothingness 
And  sovereign  contempt  of  all  the  ends 
That  seemed  exalted  and  desirable. 

In  short,  the  characters  of  '  The  Maid  of  Orleans  * 
leave  much  to  be  desired  on  the  score  of  verisimilitude. 
One  has  the  feeling  all  along,  as  in  the  case  of  Goethe's 
*  Helena  ' ,  of  being  in  an  artificial  world  made  to  order 
by  an  imaginative  fiat.  To  enjoy  the  play  it  is  neces- 
sary to  put  aside  one's  rationalism  and  surrender  one- 
self to  the  illusion  one  knows  that  the  author  wishes  to 
produce.  '  The  Maid  of  Orleans  '  does  not  compel  the 
surrender  like  *  Wallenstein  ' ;  one  must  meet  the  poet 
half-way.  That  done,  however,  everything  is  in  order, 
for  the  technique  of  the  play  is  faultless.  It  is  not  easy 
to  point  to  a  better  piece  of  dramatic  exposition  than 
the  scenes  which  precede  the  appearance  of  Johanna 
in  the  French  army.  The  Prologue  is  perhaps  a  trifle 
too  long,  but  serves  admirably  to  give  the  tragic  key- 
note, by  picturing  the  shepherd-girl  of  Dom  Remi 
leading  a  life  apart  from  that  of  her  family,  given  to 
strange  brooding,  and  at  last  receiving  the  sign  from 


386  The  Maid  of  Orleans 

Heaven,  which  she  prophetically  feels  to  be  the  call  of 
death.  And  then  the  desperate  plight  of  France;  the 
helpless  weakness  of  the  king;  the  disgust  and  dis- 
couragement of  the  generals ;  and  after  this  the  news 
of  a  long  unwonted  victory,  followed  quickly  by  the 
appearance  of  Johanna  and  the  magic  change  of  the 
military  situation, — how  vividly  it  is  all  brought  before 
one !  And  what  a  fine  scene  is  that  at  the  end  of  the 
second  act,  in  which  Burgundy  is  won  over!  One 
who  is  not  touched  by  this  portion  of  the  play;  who 
does  not  return  to  it  with  ever-renewed  pleasure  after 
each  sojourn  in  the  choking  air  of  naturalism,  is — to 
state  the  case  as  gently  as  possible — unfortunately 
endowed. 


CHAPTER   XIX 
tTbe  30riDe  of  ^esBina 

Das  Leben  ist  der  Giiter  hochstes  nicht, 
Der  Ubel  grosztes  aber  ist  die  Schuld. 

'  The  Bride  of  Messina  \ 

After  the  completion  of  '  The  Maid  of  Orleans  \. 
in  the  spring  of  1801,  Schiller  found  himself  once  more 
the  unhappy  victim  of  leisure.  A  new  task  was  needed 
to  make  life  tolerable,  but  what  should  it  be  ?  '  At 
my  time  of  life',  he  remarked  in  a  letter  to  Korner, 
'  the  choice  of  a  subject  is  far  more  difficult ;  the  levity 
of  mind  which  enables  one  to  decide  so  quickly  in 
one's  youth  is  no  longer  there,  and  the  love,  without 
which  there  can  be  no  poetic  creation,  is  harder  to 
arouse.'  Ere  long,  having  a  mind  to  try  his  hand 
upon  a  tragedy  in  '  the  strictest  Greek  form  ' ,  he  was 
musing  upon  that  which  in  time  came  to  be  known  as 
*  The  Bride  of  Messina  ' . 

For  the  present,  however,  and  for  some  time  to 
come,  he  did  not  advance  beyond  very  general  plan- 
ning. In  the  summer  he  spent  several  weeks  with 
Korner  in  Dresden,  during  which  literary  labor  was 
suspended.  After  his  return  to  Weimar,  in  September, 
he  found  the  conditions  without  and  within  unfavorable 
to  a  serious  creative  effort,  so  he  undertook  a  German 
version  of  Gozzi's    'Turandot'.     This   occupied  him 

387 


388  The  Bride  of  Messina 

until  January,  1802.  Then  it  was  a  question  whether 
his  next  theme  should  be  '  The  Knights  of  Malta  ',  or 
*  Warbeck  ',  or  '  William  Tell  ',  the  last  having  begun 
to  interest  him  because  of  a  persistent  rumor  that  he 
was  working  upon  a  play  of  that  name.  But  none  of 
the  four  projects  carried  the  day  immediately,  and  the 
winter  and  spring  passed  without  bringing  a  decision. 
He  began  to  be  worried  over  the  *  spirit  of  distraction  ' 
that  had  come  upon  him.  In  August,  however,  the 
long  vacillation  came  to  an  end,  and  '  The  Bride  of 
Messina  '  began  to  take  shape  on  paper.  He  found  it 
more  instructive  than  any  of  his  previous  works.  It 
was  also,  he  remarked  in  a  letter,  a  more  grateful 
task  to  amplify  a  small  matter  than  to  condense  a 
large  one.  Once  begun,  the  composition  proceeded 
very  steadily, — but  little  disturbed  by  the  arrival,  one 
day  in  November,  of  a  patent  of  nobility  from  the 
chancellery  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire, — until  the  end 
was  reached,  in  February,  1803. 

The  play  may  be  described  as  an  attempt  to  treat  a 
medieval  romantic  theme  in  such  a  manner  as  to  convey 
a  suggestion  of  Greek  tragedy.  Although  written  with 
enthusiasm  it  is  not  the  bearer  of  any  heartfelt  message 
and  must  be  regarded  as  a  study  of  theory  rather  than 
of  life.  The  highly  artificial  plot  does  not  reflect  any 
past  or  present  verities  of  human  existence  upon  the 
planet  earth.  Nor  can  we  call  the  play  an  imitation 
of  the  Greeks,  its  general  atmosphere  being  anything 
but  Greek.  The  dialogue  is  not  written  in  classical 
trimeters,  but  in  the  modern  pentameter;  while  the 
speaking  chorus,  divided  into  two  warring  factions  and 
going  about  here  and  there  as  the  scene  changes,  has 


General  Characterization  389 

little   resemblance   to   anything   found   in  the   Greek  j 
drama.     On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  chorus,  and 
there  are    dreams  which    take  the    place   of  oracles. 
There  is  also  a  further  suggestion  of  the  antique  in  the  ^ 
pervading  fatalism  of  the  piece. 

Of  all  Schiller's  works  *  The  Bride  of  Messina  *  has 
been  the  most  variously  judged  by  the  critics.  Some 
have  seen  in  it  the  very  perfection  of  art,  others  the 
climax  of  artificiality.  Schiller  himself  reported,  after 
seeing  it  performed  at  Weimar,  in  1803,  that  he  had 
*  received  for  the  first  time  the  impression  of  true  | 
tragedy ' .  There  is  also  an  authentic  record  to  the 
effect  that  Goethe  was  inexpressibly  delighted  with  it 
and  declared  that  *  by  this  production  the  boards  had 
been  consecrated  to  higher  things '.  Wilhelm  von 
Humboldt  wrote  that  nothing  could  surpass  the  majesty 
of  the  play,  and  Korner  assigned  it  a  high  rank  among 
Schiller's  productions.  On  the  other  hand  it  was 
spoken  of  by  the  satellites  of  the  disgruntled  Herder 
as  a  *  singular  fata  morgana^  and  a  *  shocking  mon- 
strosity ' ;  while  F.  H.  Jacobi  characterized  it  as  a 
'  disgusting  spook  made  by  mixing  heaven  and  hell '. 
And  these  discordant  voices,  in  all  their  vehemence  of 
expression,  have  been  echoed  by  later  critics ;  so  that 
in  the  case  of  this  particular  drama,  as  Bellermann 
observes,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  speak  of  a  settled 
average  opinion.  On  one  point,  nevertheless,  there  is 
very  general  agreement:  namely,  that  the  diction  of 
the  choruses  is  magnificent  in  its  kind.  Nothing  finer 
in  German  poetry  anywhere. 

From  the  outset  critical  discussion  of  *  The  Bride  of 
Messina  '  has  turned  mainly  upon  its  antique  elements, 


390 


The  Bride  of  Messina 


that  is,  upon  its  chorus  and  its  treatment  of  the  fate- 
idea.  There  has  been  endless  comparison  of  Sophocles* 
*  King  CEdipus  '  and  endless  logomachy  about  free- 
will and  predestination  in  their  relation  to  guilt.  And 
such  discussion  is  pertinent,  because  we  have  Schiller's 
own  word  that  he  wished  to  vie  with  Sophocles.  An 
oft-quoted  passage  from  a  letter  to  Wilhelm  von  Hum- 
boldt runs  as  follows : 

My  first  attempt  at  a  tragedy  in  the  strict  form  will  give  you 
pleasure.  From  it  you  will  be  able  to  judge  whether  I  could 
have  carried  off  a  prize  as  a  contemporary  of  Sophocles.  I  do 
not  forget  that  you  have  called  me  the  most  modern  of  modem 
poets,  and  have  thus  thought  of  me  in  the  sharpest  contrast  to 
everything  that  is  styled  antique.  I  should  thus  have  reason  to 
be  doubly  pleased  if  I  could  wrest  from  you  the  admission  that 
I  have  been  able  to  make  even  this  strange  spirit  my  own. 

At  first  blush  this  looks  like  an  abandonment  of  the 
position  stated  so  clearly  and  emphatically  in  the  letter 
to  Siivern  (page  380).  In  reality,  however,  it  is  not 
so.  Schiller  was  not  concerned  to  imitate  Sophocles, 
nor  to  revive  an  ancient  form  with  pedantic  rigor. 
He  was  as  far  as  possible  from  a  one-sided  worship  of 
the  Greeks.  His  reference  to  his  *  strict  form  '  hardly 
means  more  than  is  implied  in  simplicity  of  plot,  few- 
ness of  characters  and  observance  of  the  unities.  He 
did  not  write  *  The  Bride  of  Messina  '  in  any  doctrinaire 
spirit, — either  to  reform  the  German  drama,  or  to 
furnish  a  model  for  imitation.  The  play  is  simply  an 
aesthetic  experiment ;  a  tentative  excursion  into  a  field 
confessedly  *  strange  '.  What  Schiller  wished  was  to 
produce  upon  a  modern  audience,  by  an  original  treat- 
ment of  a  medieval  theme,  a  tragic  effect  similar  to  that 
which,  as  he  supposed,  must  have  been  produced  upon 


Substance  of  the  Plot  391 

an  Athenian  audience  by  a  play  of  Sophocles, — more  [ 
especially  by  the  *  King  CEdipus  '.  I 

For  the  groundwork  of  his  tragedy  he  resorted  to 
the  well-worn  fiction  of  the  hostile  brothers,  giving  it 
this  form:  Two  princes  grow  up  in  mutual  hatred,  but 
are  finally  reconciled  through  the  influence  of  their 
mother.  Both  fall  in  love,  each  without  the  other's 
knowledge,  with  a  young  woman  of  whose  family  they 
know  nothing,  and  who  is  in  reality  their  sister.  One 
day  the  younger  prince  finds  the  object  of  his  passion 
in  the  arms  of  his  brother,  who  has  just  learned  the 
secret  of  the  girl's  birth.  Instantly  the  old  hate  blazes 
up  anew,  and  in  a  paroxysm  of  blind  rage  Don  Cesar 
kills  his  brother.  Then,  when  he  discovers  the  whole 
truth,  he  expiates  his  crime  by  a  voluntary  death. — In 
this  scheme,  it  will  be  observed,  the  salient  point  is  the 
fratricide  committed  in  a  sudden  frenzy  of  passion: 
everything  else  leads  up  to  this  or  grows  out  of  it. 
From  a  modern  point  of  view  the  crime  is  adequately 
accounted  for  by  the  character  of  Don  Cesar;  but  if 
the  story  was  to  be  given  a  Sophoclean  coloring  it  was 
necessary  that  the  horrors  appear  as  the  necessary 
evolution  of  ineluctable  fate. 

In  employing  the  fate-idea  for  dramatic  purposes  the 
Greek  poet  had,  in  the  first  place,  the  great  advantage 
of  a  definite  mythological  tradition  which  was  known 
to  everybody.  In  the  second  place,  he  wrote  for 
people  who  still  believed  in  oracles  and  received  them 
seriously  as  credible  manifestations  of  divine  foreknowl- 
edge. Again,  he  could  count  on  a  living  belief  in  the 
hereditary  character  of  guilt:  the  belief  that  a  good 
man,  leading  his  life  without  evil  intent,  might  be  led 


393  The  Bride  of  Messina 

to  commit  horrible  and  revolting  acts  because  of  some 
ancient  taint  in  his  blood;  or  because  the  gods,  in 
their  inscrutable  government  of  the  world,  had  decreed 
that  he  should  thus  sin  and  suffer.  Just  how  far  the 
Greek  conception  of  moral  responsibility  differed  in  a 
general  way  from  the  modern,  is  a  trite  question  which 
need  not  be  gone  into  here.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the 
difference  has  often  been  too  broadly  and  too  sharply 
stated.  Not  all  Greek  tragedies  were  tragedies  of  fate, 
— indeed  it  was  a  saying  of  Schiller  that  the  *  King 
CEdipus  '  constitutes  a  genus  by  itself — nor  is  there 
any  definite  unitary  conception  which  can  be  described 
as  *  modern  '  for  the  purpose  of  a  contrast. 

After  all,  that  which  affects  us  in  tragedy  is  very 
much  the  same  as  that  which  affected  the  Greeks, 
namely,  the  sense  of  life's  overruling  mystery.  And 
whether  we  refer  the  happenings  of  life  to  an  all-wise 
Providence,  or  to  a  scientific  order  which  is  so  because 
it  is  so,  they  remain  alike  incommensurable  with  our 
ethical  feehng.  The  bullet  of  a  crazed  fanatic,  or  a 
lethal  germ  in  a  glass  of  water,  may  end  the  noblest 
career  in  horrible  suffering.  In  the  drama,  it  is  true, 
we  prefer  that  no  use  be  made  of  such  mad  calamities 
and  that  what  befalls  a  man  shall  at  least  seem  to  grow 
out  of  his  character.  But  then  a  man's  character  is 
the  effect  of  a  hundred  subtle  causes  which  began  their 
operation  in  part  before  he  was  born ;  so  that  there  is 
an  element  of  essential  truth  in  the  saying  that  char- 
acter is  fate.  We  have  become  aware  that  there  is  a 
sense  in  which  it  is  exactly  true  that  the  sins  of  the 
father  are  visited  upon  the  children. 

In  short,  modern  thought  has  not  tended  to  clear 


Fate  and  Responsibility  393 

up  but  rather  to  deepen  the  mystery  of  life  in  its  rela- 
tion to  antecedent  conditions ;  of  fate  in  its  relation  to 
desert.  Our  common  sense,  as  embodied  in  law,  treats 
a  man  as  responsible  for  the  good  or  evil  that  he  per- 
sonally intends.  This  is  no  doubt  an  excellent  practical 
rule,  without  which  society  could  hardly  exist  at  all ; 
but  looked  at  philosophically  it  does  not  really  touch 
the  heart  of  the  great  mystery  which  is  the  theme  of 
*  King  CEdipus  '  and  of  '  The  Bride  of  Messina  '.  The 
young  CEdipus,  while  living  at  Corinth  with  his  foster- 
father,  Polybus,  whom  he  supposes  to  be  his  real  father, 
is  told  by  the  oracle  that  he  is  destined  to  kill  his  father 
and  marry  his  mother.  What  should  he  do  ?  Com- 
mit suicide  in  order  to  stultify  the  oracle,  or  resolve  to 
kill  no  man  and  to  marry  no  woman  ^  The  story 
imputes  to  him  no  blame  for  doing  neither  of  these 
things.  He  acts  as  a  man  would  act  who  sees  himself 
confronted  by  an  evitable  danger.  He  leaves  Corinth, 
but  the  very  step  that  he  takes  to  avoid  his  fate  brings 
it  surely  to  pass.  He  meets  a  stranger  in  the  road. 
A  quarrel  arises  over  the  question  of  passing, — a 
quarrel  as  to  the  merit  of  which  the  legend  is  silent. 
CEdipus  kills  his  antagonist,  and  that  antagonist  is  his 
father.  Then  he  delivers  Thebes  from  the  scourge  of 
the  Sphinx  and  receives  the  hand  of  Queen  Jocasta 
as  his  due  reward.  He  has  forgotten  the  oracle,  or 
imagines  that  he  has  eluded  his  foreordained  fate  by 
leaving  Corinth ;  but  the  oracle  has  fulfilled  itself,  as 
the  spectator  knew  from  the  beginning  that  it  would. 
The  interest  of  the  tragedy  turns  largely  upon  the 
overwhelming  remorse  of  CEdipus  and  Jocasta  when 
they  discover  the  truth. 


394  The  Bride  of  Messina 

To  match  these  conditions  Schiller  requires  us  to 
imagine  a  medieval  prince  of  Messina  reigning  at  some 
indefinite  time  in  the  Middle  Ages.  While  his  two 
sons  are  yet  children  he  has  a  dream  in  which  he  sees 
two  laurel-trees  growing  out  of  his  marriage-bed,  and 
between  them  a  lily  which  changes  to  flame  and  con- 
sumes his  house.  An  Arabian  astrologer,  for  whom 
he  has  a  heathenish  partiality,  interprets  the  dream  as 
meaning  that  a  daughter  yet  to  be  born  will  cause  the 
destruction  of  his  dynasty.  So  when  a  daughter  is 
born  he  orders  her  put  to  death.  But  the  mother  has 
also  had  her  dream, — of  a  lion  and  an  eagle  bringing 
their  bloody  prey  in  sweet  concord  to  a  little  child 
playing  on  the  grass.  A  pious  Christian  monk  explains 
this  dream  as  meaning  that  a  daughter  will  unite  the 
quarrelsome  sons  in  passionate  love.  So  the  queen 
saves  the  life  of  her  new-born  child  and  has  her  secretly 
brought  up  in  a  convent  not  far  from  Messina.  As 
long  as  the  father  hves  the  hostile  brothers  are  restrained 
from  fighting,  but  when  he  dies  their  feud  breaks  out 
in  open  war.  Each  surrounds  himself  with  retainers, 
Messina  is  torn  by  factional  strife,  and  there  is  da|iger 
from  external  enemies.  Citizens  implore  the  mother 
to  effect  a  reconciliation,  failing  which  they  threaten  a 
revolution.  At  last  she  succeeds  in  arranging  a  peace- 
ful meeting  in  her  presence. 

Such  is  Schiller's  presupposition, — a  singular  blend 
of  Christianity  and  paganism,  such  as  at  once  gives 
difficulty  to  the  imagination.  A  prince  reigning  under 
a  Christian  order  of  things,  in  a  city  of  churches  and 
convents,  yet  willing  to  murder  his  child  on  account 
of  a  dream  interpreted  to  him  by  an  Arab  soothsayer, 


Unnaturalness  of  the  Action  395 

is  not  a  very  plausible  invention.  And  the  same  may 
be  said  of  much  that  follows.  In  half-a-dozen  places 
the  tragedy  would  come  to  an  untimely  end  did  not 
one  or  another  of  the  characters  conveniently  refrain 
from  doing  or  saying  what  a  human  being  would  in- 
evitably do  or  say  under  the  circumstances.  Beatrice 
grows  up  in  the  convent  without  taking  vows  and  is 
kept  in  ignorance  of  her  lineage.  Though  her  mother  \ 
longs  for  her,  she  never  sees  her,  and  communicates 
with  her  only  through  the  old  servant,  Diego.  Such  ' 
conduct  is  perhaps  intelligible  during  the  life  of  the 
king,  but  with  him  out  of  the  way  one  would  expect 
the  mother  to  take  her  daughter  home  without  a 
moment's  delay.  Instead  of  that  she  waits  two  months, 
merely  sending  word  to  Beatrice  to  prepare  for  some 
unnamed  change  of  fortune.  She  also  keeps  the  secret 
from  her  sons  during  these  two  months,  without  any 
sufficient  reason.  When  questioned  on  the  subject  by 
Don  Cesar  in  the  play,  she  makes  the  bitter  feud  of 
the  brothers  her  excuse: 

How  could  I  place  your  sister  here  atwixt 

Your  bare  and  reeking  swords  ?     In  your  fierce  rage 

You  would  not  hearken  to  a  mother's  voice  ; 

And  could  I  have  brought  her,  the  pledge  of  peace, 

The  anchor  of  my  every  dearest  hope, 

To  be  perchance  the  victim  of  your  strife  ? 

But  this  is  strange  logic.  One  does  not  see  at  all  how 
the  sister's  life  would  have  been  imperiled;  and  if  she- 
was  to  be  the  pledge  of  peace, — as  the  mother's  dream 
seemed  to  foretell, — then  there  was  the  best  of  reasons 
for  bringing  her  home  at  the  earliest  possible  moment. 
And  then    how   singularly    Don    Manuel    behaves! 


396  The  Bride  of  Messina 

He  IS  the  elder  son,  and  as  such  must  be  heir  to  the 
throne ;  but  of  that  we  hear  nothing  in  the  play.  He 
falls  in  love  with  Beatrice,  sees  her  often  during  a 
period  of  months,  and  secures  from  her  a  promise  of 
marriage ;  but  he  never  tells  her  who  he  is,  nor  does 
he  ask  her  a  question  about  her  own  lineage.  When 
she  tells  him  of  an  old  man  who  comes  to  her  occa- 
sionally as  messenger  from  her  unknown  family,  and 
who  has  at  last  bidden  her  prepare  for  a  change  of 
abode,  he  makes  no  attempt  to  see  the  stranger  and 
find  out  whither  his  bride  is  to  be  taken.  For  such 
conduct  he  can  have  no  possible  reason,  but  Schiller 
has  one ;  for  were  Don  Manuel  once  to  set  eyes  on  the 
old  family  servant,  Diego,  a  clearing-up  would  of 
course  be  inevitable.  Instead  of  doing  the  one  natural 
thing,  Don  Manuel  abducts  his  sweetheart  during  the 
night,  with  her  consent,  and  takes  her  to  a  garden  in 
Messina.  There  he  leaves  her  alone  to  await  his 
coming, — a  singular  thing  for  a  prince  to  do  with  his 
bride,  but  necessary  to  the  tragedy. 

More  dubious  still  is  the  remarkable  silence  of 
Beatrice  when  she  is  exposed  to  the  stormy  wooing  of 
Don  Cesar  in  the  garden.  The  fiction  is  that  he  has 
caught  a  glimpse  of  her  two  months  before,  on  the 
occasion  of  his  father's  funeral,  and  has  since  been 
constantly  searching  for  her.  Having  now  found  her, 
through  one  of  his  spies,  he  makes  love  to  her  jubilantly 
through  sixty  lines  of  text,  but  she  answers  never  a 
syllable  and  lets  him  go  away  in  supposed  triumph. 
A  bare  word  from  her,  such  as  a  woman  could  not 
help  saying  under  the  circumstances,  would  end  the 
complication,   since   it  would  send    Don  Cesar   away 


Singular  Conduct  of  the  Mother        397 

baffled;  and  then  there  would  be  no  occasion  for  his 
returning  to  the  garden  a  Httle  later.  Maidenly  fright 
and  consternation  cannot  account  rationally  for  such 
behavior;  one  sees  that  she  holds  her  tongue  because 
to  set  it  in  motion  would  be  dramaturgically  disastrous. 
But  the  climax  of  unnaturalness  is  reached  in  the 
scene  between  the  queen  and  her  two  sons,  when  old 
Diego  reports  that  Beatrice  has  been  abducted  from 
the  convent — presumbly  by  Moorish  corsairs.  The 
distracted  mother  urges  her  sons  to  go  at  once  to  the 
rescue  of  their  sister.  But  here  a  difficulty  presents 
itself.  If  the  brothers  are  to  have  the  faintest  chance 
of  finding  their  sister,  it  is  clearly  of  the  first  importance 
that  they  know  something  about  her,  and  particularly 
that  they  know  where  she  has  been  kept  in  hiding. 
Now  this  knowledge  can  be  safely  imparted  to  Don 
Cesar  but  not  to  Don  Manuel.  So  Don  Cesar  is 
made  to  rush  away  hotly,  at  all  adventure,  without  the 
slightest  clew  of  any  kind, — the  reason  being  that  it 
would  not  do  for  him  to  hear  that  which  Diego  is  about 
to  tell.  The  younger  brother  thus  conveniently  out 
of  the  way,  Don  Manuel,  who  has  begun  to  suspect  the 
truth,  implores  his  mother  to  tell  him  where  the  lost 
Beatrice  has  been  concealed.  Evidently  the  only 
natural  part  for  the  mother  is  to  answer  the  question. 
But  that  would  not  do;  so  she  interrupts  him  and 
urges  him  away  with  such  senseless  exclamations  as 
'  Fly  to  action!'  'Follow  your  brother's  example!' 
*  Behold  my  tears ! '  And  when  at  last  he  succeeds  in 
bringing  out  the  fateful  inquiry,  she  only  answers : 

The  bowels  of  earth  were  not  a  safer  refuge  ! 


398  The  Bride  of  Messina 

Then  Don  Manuel  ceases  to  press  his  question  and 
stands  quietly  by  while  Diego  tells  his  remorseful  story 
of  Beatrice's  visit  to  the  church  on  the  day  of  her 
father's  funeral.  Strangely  enough  this  recital  sug- 
gests to  Don  Manuel  the  hopeful  suspicion  that  his 
sister  and  his  sweetheart  may,  after  all,  not  be  the 
same  person ;  so  he  rushes  away  to  question  Beatrice, 
when  he  must  know  that  his  mother  is  the  one  person 
in  the  world  who  can  best  resolve  his  doubts.  Then, 
when  he  is  gone,  Don  Cesar  comes  back,  and  the 
mother  very  calmly  proceeds  to  give  him  the  all-im- 
portant information  which  she  has  just  withheld  from 
Don  Manuel. 

Such  is  the  device,  of  convenient  silence  at  critical 
points  where  speech  would  be  natural  but  ruinous,  by 
which  Schiller  leads  up  to  his  climax.  There  is  no 
other  play  of  his,  early  or  late,  the  entanglement  of 
which  is  so  palpably  artificial;  so  like  a  child's  house 
of  cards,  built  up  with  bated  breath  lest  a  breath  should 
topple  it  over.  According  to  Bottiger,  Schiller  once 
took  note  of  what  some  critic  had  remarked  upon  this 
lavish  use  of  silence  in  '  The  Bride  of  Messina  '  and 
expressed  surprise  that  any  one  could  so  misconceive 
him.  He  went  on  to  say,  if  we  can  trust  Bottiger,  that 
it  is  *  precisely  in  this  closing  of  the  mouth  at  critical 
moments,  when  a  saving  word  might  rend  the  iron 
net  of  fate,  that  the  unevadable  and  demonic  power  of 
evil-brooding  destiny  manifests  itself  most  clearly  and 
sends  a  gruesome  shudder  of  awe  through  every  spec- 
jtator. '  This  is  certainly  a  good  defense  if  we  assume 
jthat  the  great  object  of  dramatic  poetry  is  to  exhibit 
the  working-out  of  some  abstract  scheme  of  mysterious 


Schifler^s  Contempt  of  Realism 


399 


fate.  Under  that  hypothesis  one  has  no  right  to  com- 
plain if  the  characters  are  treated  like  puppets, — pulled 
hither  and  thither  in  unnatural  directions  and  made  to 
speak  when  they  should  be  silent,  and  to  be  silent 
when  they  should  speak.  If  one  finds  the  scheme 
impressive,  one  will  think  of  that,  get  his  thrill  of  awe 
and  be  thankful.  But  it  is  somewhat  different  if  one 
holds  that  the  verities  of  human  nature  are  more  inter- 
esting than  any  scheme,  and  that  the  great  object  of 
the  serious  drama  should  be  to  exhibit  human  beings 
in  the  stress  of  life.  One  who  takes  that  view  will 
wish,  while  recognizing  the  great  qualities  of  '  The 
Bride  of  Messina  ' ,  that  its  author  had  not  gone  quite 
so  far  in  his  contempt  of  realism. 

For,  after  all,  the  highest  law  of  the  drama  is  the  law 
of  psychological  truth,  which  requires  that  the  charac- 
ters be  humanly  conceivable  and  act  as  human  beings 
would  act  under  the  circumstances  imagined.  This 
law  is  not  kept  in  *  The  Bride  of  Messina  ',  with  the 
result  that  the  first  three  acts  fall  short  of  the  effect 
that  they  are  intended  to  produce.  It  is  different  with 
the  fourth  act.  There  everything  is  in  order,  and  the 
simple  and  noble  impressiveness  of  the  tragedy  leaves 
nothing  to  be  desired.  And  it  is  an  interesting  fact 
that  this  impressiveness  depends  only  in  a  slight  degree 
upon  the  fulfillment  of  the  old  dreams  and  prophecies. 
To  be  sure  they  are  fulfilled ;  but  we  are  not  required 
to  put  faith  in  the  inspiration  either  of  the  Arab  sooth- 
sayer or  of  the  Christian  monk.  Their  vaticinations 
might  be  mere  fallible  guess-work ;  Don  Cesar  might 
live  and  give  them  the  lie,  so  far  as  any  external 
constraint  is  concerned.     But  he  himself  feels  that  the 


400  The  Bride  of  Messina 

heavy  hand  of  fate  is  upon  him  and  that  continued  life 
would  be  intolerable.  The  whole  pathos  of  the  tragedy- 
is   transferred    to    the    inner   being    of    the    surviving 

'  brother,  and  one  feels  that  his  self-destruction  proceeds 
from  the   law  of  his  own  nature,  and  not  from  any 

I  fatalistic  necessity  that  is  laid  upon  him. 

The  truth  would  seem  to  be  that  the  fate-idea,  while 
of  course  it  must  be  taken  into  consideration  in  any 
careful  estimate  of  *  The  Bride  of  Messina  ',  has  been 
made  a  little  too  prominent  by  many  of  the  critics. 
What  the  spectator  sees,  says  one  writer  who  is  in  the 
main  an  admirable  expounder  of  Schiller,  is  * '  gigantic 

'  Fate  striding  over  the  stage.  He  sees  a  wild,  tyran- 
nical race,  burdened  with  ancestral  guilt,  turning 
against  its  own  flesh  and  blood.  .  .  .  He  is  made  to 
feel  that  the  self-destruction  of  this  race  is  nothing 
accidental,  that  it  is  a  divine  visitation,  a  judgment  of 
eternal  justice  pronounced  against  usurpation  and  law- 
lessness, that  it  means  the  birth  of  a  new  spiritual  order 
out  of  doom  and  death.  * '  ^  But  is  this  what  is  actually 
seen .?  Is  it  not  rather  true  that  Schiller  makes  but 
little  out  of  the  matter  of  ancestral  guilt  ?  We  hear, 
it  is  true,  that  the  old  prince  was  of  an  alien  stock  that 
had  won  the  sovereignty  of  Messina  with  the  sword 
and  held  it  by  force.  But  this  is  no  very  appalling 
crime  as  the  world  goes,  and  especially  as  the  world 
went  in  the  Middle  Ages.  One  hardly  thinks  of 
William  of  Normandy,  for  example,  as  a  revolting 
criminal  deserving  of  the  divine  wrath.  Then  we 
hear,  too,  that  the  old  prince  had  appropriated  to  him- 

'  Kuno  Francke,  ♦*  Social  Forces  in  German  Literature,"  page  394. 


Use  of  the  Fate-Idea  401 

self  a  wife  who  was  *  his  father's  choice'.  But  the 
whole  matter  is  disposed  of  in  two  or  three  choral  lines 
which  leave  not  even  a  clear,  much  less  a  strong  im- 
pression. There  are  no  data  for  an  ethical  judgment. 
We  are  not  told  wherein  the  superior  right  of  the  father 
consisted.  For  aught  we  know  the  son  may  have  had 
the  better  claim,  and  the  father's  curse  may  have  been 
only  the  impotent  scolding  of  a  disappointed  dotard. 
It  is  difficult  to  see  anything  here  which  can  rationally 
warrant  eternal  justice  in  extirpating  the  race.  And 
when  we  pass  from  the  presuppositions  to  the  play 
itself,  we  see  that  none  of  the  characters  except  Don  n 
Cesar  does  anything  seriously  blameworthy. 

If  then  it  were  clearly  the  central  purpose  of  Schiller 
to  justify  the  moral  government  of  the  world,  or  to 
exhibit  the  workings  of  an  august  Fate  in  itself  worthy 
of  reverence,  we  should  have  to  admit  that  he  has 
missed  the  mark ;  for  the  fate  that  he  represents  is  not 
worthy  of  reverence  at  all.  But  what  is  the  central 
fact  of  the  play,  as  seen  by  the  unsophisticated  spec- 
tator who  has  never  read  the  Greek  poets  nor  heard  of 
the  house  of  Labdacus  ?  Evidently  it  is  the  murder 
expiated  by  a  voluntary  death.  A  high-minded  youth 
knowingly  kills  his  brother  in  a  moment  of  blind  rage, 
because  he  thinks  that  his  brother  has  deceived  him. 
When  he  learns  the  truth,  and  learns  also  of  the  old 
dreams  and  prophecies,  he  feels  that  he  too  must  die. 
Here  is  the  real  tragedy, — in  the  resolution  of  Don 
Cesar  and  his  steadfast  adherence  to  it  in  the  face  of 
his  mother's  and  his  sister's  entreaties.  The  appa- 
ratus of  dreams  and  prophecies  and  fate  is  meant  to 
work  upon  the  mind  of  Don  Cesar  rather  than  upon 


4oa  The  Bride  of  Messina 

that  of  the  spectator.  Superstition  adds  to  the  burden 
of  his  remorse  until  it  becomes  unbearable  and  death 
appears  the  only  road  to  peace : 

Dying  I  bring  to  naught  the  ancient  curse, 
A  free  death  only  breaks  the  chain  of  fate. 

In  a  prefatory  essay  upon  *  The  Use  of  the  Chorus 
in  Tragedy '  Schiller  defended  his  innovation  and 
incidentally  set  his  heel  upon  the  head  of  the  serpent 
of  naturalism.  True  art,  he  insisted,  must  have  a 
higher  aim  than  to  produce  an  illusion  of  the  actual. 
Its  object  is  not  to  divert  men  with  a  momentary  dream 
'of  freedom,  but  to  make  them  truly  free  by  awakening 
and  developing  the  power  of  imaginative  objectivation. 
Nature  itself  being  only  an  idea  of  the  mind,  and  not 
something  that  appears  to  the  senses,  art  must  be  ideal 
in  order  to  represent  the  reality  of  nature.  To  demand 
upon  the  stage  an  illusion  of  the  actual  is  absurd,  since 
dramatic  art  rests  entirely  upon  ideal  conventions  of 
one  kind  or  another.  Therefore,  so  the  argument  goes 
on,  it  was  well  when  a  poetic  diction  was  substituted 
for  the  prose  of  every-day  life,  and  the  next  great  step 
is  to  reintroduce  the  chorus  and  thereby  *  declare  war 
openly  and  honestly  against  naturalism  in  art ' .  The 
chorus  is  likened  to  a  *  living  wall  which  tragedy  builds 
about  itself  in  order  completely  to  shut  out  the  actual 
world  and  to  preserve  for  itself  its  ideal  domain,  its 
poetic  freedom  '. 

In  consonance  with  these  ideas  we  have  a  chorus 
divided  into  two  parts,  one  consisting  of  the  elderly  re- 
tainers of  Don  Manuel,  the  other  of  the  younger  re- 
tainers of  Don  Cesar.     These  two  semi-choruses  take 


Apologia  for  the  Qiorus  403 

a  certain  part  in  the  action.  On  the  one  hand  they 
are  like  the  materialized  shadows  of  their  respective 
leaders,  having  no  will  of  their  own.  When  the 
brothers  compose  their  feud  and  embrace  each  other, 
the  semi-choruses  do  likewise, — which  comes  peril- 
ously near  to  the  ridiculous.  On  the  other  hand  the 
semi-choruses  have  a  horizon  of  their  own  and  per- 
form, to  a  certain  extent,  the  old  function  of  the  ideal 
spectator.  They  comment  in  sonorous  strains  upon 
present,  past  and  future,  and  upon  the  high  matters  of 
life  and  death  and  fate. 

Schiller's  argument  on  the  use  of  the  chorus,  while 
interesting  in  its  way,  does  not  now  sound  very  con- 
vincing; perhaps  because  we  have  come  to  have  less 
faith  than  he  had  in  the  possibility  of  settling  such 
questions  by  abstract  reasoning.  Forms  of  art  spring 
out  of  local  and  temporal  conditions ;  they  have  their 
exits  and  their  entrances.  Now  and  then  a  reversion 
to  some  earlier  form  may  prove  acceptable,  but  in 
general  it  can  have  only  a  curious  or  antiquarian 
interest.  The  man  of  reading,  who  knows  his  Greek 
poets,  will  be  glad  to  have  seen  once  or  twice  in  his 
life  a  genuine  Greek  play, — preferably  in  the  Greek 
language,  with  all  the  accessories  as  perfect  as  possible. 
Next  to  that  he  will  enjoy  a  perfect  imitation,  like  the 
first  portion  of  Goethe's  '  Helena  '.  But  just  in  pro- 
portion as  he  is  permeated  by  the  Greek  spirit  he  will 
feel  the  spuriousness  of  Schiller's  so-called  chorus. 
For  the  effect  of  the  Greek  chorus  depended  not  so 
much  upon  the  meaning  of  the  words  as  upon  the  sen- 
suous charm  of  the  music  and  the  dance.  To  sacrifice 
these  is  to  sacrifice  that  which  is  most  vital  and  leave 


404 


The  Bride  of  Messina 


only  the  simulacrum  of  a  chorus.  Some  small  effects 
in  the  line  of  the  picturesque  can  be  achieved  by  means 
of  costuming,  marching  and  grouping,  but  the  rest  can 
be  nothing  but  elocution, — a  frosty  appeal  to  the 
ethical  sense,  offered  as  a  surrogate  for  the  witchery 
of  song  and  rhythmic  motion.  One  may  be  pardoned 
for  thinking  that  a  good  ballet  would  have  served  the 
purpose  better. 

The  reader  of  the  play,  however,  is  not  disturbed  by 
any  considerations  of  this  kind.  For  him  the  choruses 
are  simply  poetry, — admirable  poetry,  for  the  most 
part,  in  Schiller's  very  best  vein.  What  a  wealth  of 
imagery  and  what  a  splendor  of  varying  rhythms! 
And  how  cunningly  the  gorgeous  diction  twines  itself, 
like  ivy  about  a  bare  wall,  concealing  the  nakedness 
of  commonplace  and  giving  an  effect  of  noble  senten- 
tious wisdom!  This  is  and  must  remain  the  great 
value  of  '  The  Bride  of  Messina  ', — to  delight  the  reader 
with  the  charm  of  its  style.  Schiller's  plea  for  the 
chorus  passed  unheeded  save  by  the  philologists.  His 
example  was  not  imitated ;  indeed  he  himself  probably 
had  no  serious  hope  that  it  would  be.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  did  spring  up  in  the  next  two  decades  a 
most  luxuriant  crop  of  so-called  fate-tragedies,  which, 
with  their  horrors,  banalities  and  puerilities,  soon 
brought  the  species  into  contempt  and  made  it  fair 
game  for  the  telling  satire  of  Platen.  The  fashion, — 
a  thoroughly  bad  fashion  in  the  main, — was  undoubtedly 
set  by  '  The  Bride  of  Messina  ' ;  but  we  cannot  make 
Schiller  answerable  for  the  hair-raising  and  blood- 
curdling inventions  of  Werner,  Houwald,  Milliner, 
Grillparzer  and  Heine. 


CHAPTER  XX 
IDClilliam  XLcll 

Der  alte  Urstand  der  Natur  kehrt  wieder, 
Wo  Mensch  dem  Menschen  gegeniibersteht ; 
Zum  letzten  Mittel,  wenn  kein  andres  mehr 
Verfangen  will,  ist  ihm  das  Schwert  gegeben. 

^William  Tell\ 

Schiller's  last  play,  like  his  first,  was  inspired  by 
the  Goddess  of  Freedom,  but  what  a  difference  between 
the  wild-eyed  bacchante  of  the  earlier  day  and  the 
decorous  muse  of  *  William  Tell ' !  There  the  frenzied 
revolt  of  a  young  idealist  against  chimerical  wrongs 
of  the  social  order;  here  a  handful  of  farmers,  rising 
sanely  in  the  might  of  union  and  appealing  to  the  old 
order  against  intolerable  oppression.  There  the  tragedy 
of  an  individual  madman ;  here  the  triumph  of  a  laud- 
able patriotism. 

'  Tell '  is  a  fresh  illustration  of  its  author's  versa- 
tility, for  nothing  more  different  from  its  immediate 
predecessors  could  easily  be  imagined.  It  is  also  the 
most  thoroughly  human  among  his  plays,  and  the  only 
one  that  does  not  end  upon  a  tragic  note.  Finally  it 
is  the  most  popular,  though  the  most  loosely  articu- 
lated,— a  fact  that  shows  how  little  the  permanent 
interest  and  classical  prestige  of  a  dramatic  production 

405 


4o6  William  TcII 

depend  upon  its  satisfying  the  ideal  demands  of  critical 
theory. 

It  was  noted  casually  in  the  preceding  chapter  that 
rumor  began  to  be  occupied  with  speculations  about 
Schiller's  *  Tell '  before  he  had  seriously  thought  of 
writing  a  play  on  the  subject.  In  the  summer  of  1797 
Goethe  had  revisited  Switzerland  and  brought  back 
with  him  the  idea  of  a  narrative  poem  about  William 
Tell.  He  discussed  the  matter  with  Schiller,  inciden- 
tally telling  him  much  about  the  Forest  Cantons. 
Possibly  he  may  have  suggested,  in  the  presence  of  a 
mutual  friend,  that  the  theme  had  dramatic  possibili- 
ties,— which  would  account  sufficiently  for  the  aforesaid 
rumor.  Finding  his  supposed  plan  the  subject  of 
curious  gossip,  Schiller  was  led  to  look  more  closely 
into  the  subject.  He  read  Tschudi's  *  Chronicon  '  and 
found  it  Homeric  and  Herodotean  in  its  simple  straight- 
forwardness. The  legend  fascinated  him  and  he  began 
to  see  in  it  the  material  of  a  popular  drama  that  should 
take  the  theatrical  world  by  storm.  He  was  eager  for 
such  a  triumph,  and  the  more  so  because  '  The  Bride 
of  Messina',  as  staged  by  Iffland  in  Berlin,  had  met 
only  with  an  equivocal  success:  many  were  pleased, 
but  there  was  a  plenty  of  adverse  comment.  Iffland 
was  now  the  director  of  the  Royal  Prussian  Theater, 
and  thus  in  a  position  to  serve  the  interests  of  Schiller, 
whom  he  devotedly  admired.  It  was  therefore  worth 
while  for  a  man  who  had  chosen  to  be  a  dramatic  poet, 
and  whose  income  depended  upon  his  popularity,  to 
forego  further  experimentation  with  unfamiliar  art-forms 
and  set  about  supplying  that  which  would  interest 
average  human  nature. 


Attention  to  Local  Color  407 

Work  began  in  the  spring  of  1803  and  proceeded 
very  steadily  during  the  ensuing  months.  The  letters 
of  the  period  express  unbounded  confidence  in  the 
nascent  play.  It  was  to  be  a  *  powerful  thing  which 
should  shake  the  theaters  of  Germany  ' ,  and  a  *  genuine 
folk-play  for  the  entire  public  '.  Honest  Tschudi  con- 
tinued to  be  the  great  source,  but  other  writers  were 
read  and  excerpted.  Schiller  took  infinite  pains  with 
his  local  color,  noting  down  from  the  books  all  sorts 
of  minutiae  that  might  aid  his  imagination.  Take  for 
illustration  the  following  jottings  from  Fasi  and 
Schleuchzer,  two  of  his  subsidiary  authorities : 

There  are  mountains  that  consist  entirely  of  ice. — Firnen; 
they  shine  like  glass  and  get  their  isolated  conical  shape  from  the 
process  of  melting  in  the  summer. — Clouds  form  in  the  mountain- 
gorges  and  attach  themselves  to  the  rocks  ;  herefrom  prognosti- 
cation of  the  weather. — View  from  on  high  when  one  stands 
above  the  clouds.  The  landscape  seems  to  lie  before  one  like  a 
great  lake,  from  which  islands  stand  forth. — In  the  summer, 
cascades  everywhere  in  the  mountains. — Chamois  graze  in  flocks, 
the  picket  ( Vorgeis)  piping  in  case  of  danger. — Weather  signs  : 
Swallows  fly  low,  aquatic  birds  dive,  sheep  graze  eagerly,  dogs 
paw  up  the  earth,  fish  leap  from  the  water.  'The  gray  gov- 
ernor of  the  valley  ( Thalvogt)  is  coming ' ;  when  this  or  that 
mountain  puts  on  a  cap,  then  drop  the  scythe  and  take  the 
rake. — Peculiarity  of  a  certain  lake  that  it  draws  to  itself  per- 
sons sleeping  on  its  bank. 

A  large  amount  of  such  conscientious  note-taking, 
aided  by  a  marvelous  power  of  visualization,  and  sup- 
plemented also  by  what  Goethe  could  tell  from  per- 
sonal observation,  resulted  in  a  remarkably  vivid  and 
accurate  local  color.  A  letter  of  Schiller's  written  in 
December,  1803,  tells  of  a  purpose  to  go  to  Switzerland 


4o8  William  Tell 

before  he  should  print  his  play.  The  plan  was  not 
carried  out,  but  if  it  had  been  there  would  have  been 
little  to  change ;  for  '  William  Tell  '  reads  throughout 
like  the  work  of  one  thoroughly  familiar  with  Swiss 
character,  topography  and  folk-lore.  There  is  not  a 
slip  of  any  importance  in  the  entire  play.  Of  course 
the  conspiring  farmers  are  idealized  and  their  enemies 
are  diabolized ;  but  all  this  is  so  in  the  saga.  Schiller 
had  to  deal  with  a  patriotic  myth,  and  he  made  no 
attempt  to  go  behind  the  romantic  veil  of  tradition; 
his  purpose  being  simply  to  present  the  poetic  essence 
of  the  saga  as  handed  down  by  Tschudi.  And  he 
succeeded  admirably.  So  far  as  the  Swiss  people  are 
concerned,  he  well  deserves  the  memorial  they  have 
placed  in  his  honor  upon  the  Mythenstein,  near  the 
legendary  birth-place  of  their  national  independence. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  year  1803  came  an  inter- 
ruption, Weimar  society  being  thrown  into  a  flutter  by 
the  visit  of  Madame  de  Stael,  now  on  her  famous  tour 
of  inspection.  It  was  of  course  fitting  that  Schiller, 
as  a  local  lion,  should  take  his  part  in  entertaining  her; 
but  the  voluble  lady  was  an  Erscheinwig  new  to  his 
experience,  and  with  his  imperfect  command  of  collo- 
quial French  he  was  hard  put  to  it  to  bear  up  against 
the  torrent  of  her  conversation.  He  measured  her  very 
correctly  at  their  first  meeting,  when  they  fell  into  an 
argument  on  the  merits  of  the  French  drama.  *  For 
what  we  call  poetry',  he  wrote  to  Goethe,  'she  has 
no  sense  ' ;  nevertheless  he  gave  her  full  credit  for  her 
great  qualities,  in  especial  for  a  good  sense  amounting 
to  genius.  And  she  in  turn  was  pleased  with  the 
serious  German  who  argued  with  her  in  lame  French, 


Success  on  the  Stage  409 

not  as  one  caring  to  hold  his  own  in  a  conversational 
fencing-match,  but  as  one  wishing  to  convince  her  of 
important  truths  in  which  he  really  believed.  It  must 
have  been  an  interesting  occasion  in  a  small  way,  this 
first  rencontre  between  Schiller  and  the  lady  who  was 
afterwards  to  speak  of  him  so  nobly  and  withal  so  justly 
in  her  celebrated  book  about  Germany.  Madame  de 
Stael's  sojourn  in  Weimar  lasted  some  ten  weeks,  her 
portentous  gift  of  speech  becoming  gradually  more  and 
more  irksome  to  Schiller  and  Goethe.  The  social 
gayeties  occasioned  by  her  presence  caused  some  retar- 
dation in  the  progress  of  *  William  Tell  *,  but  on  Feb- 
ruary 18,  1804,  it  was  completed,  and  two  days  later 
the  final  installment  was  despatched  to  the  waiting 
Iffland.  How  eagerly  he  was  waiting  may  be  inferred 
from  the  language  used  by  him  after  perusal  of  the  first 
act,  which  had  been  sent  him  a  month  earlier: 

I  have  read,  devoured,  bent  my  knee  ;  and  my  heart,  my  tears, 
my  rushing  blood,  have  paid  ecstatic  homage  to  your  spirit,  to 
your  heart.  Oh  more  !  Soon,  soon,  more  !  Pages,  scraps- 
whatever  you  can  send !  I  tender  hand  and  heart  to  your 
genius.  What  a  work  !  What  wealth,  force,  poetic  beauty  and 
irresistible  power  !     God  keep  you  !     Amen. 

These  high-keyed  expectations  were  not  disap- 
pointed. The  first  performances  of  '  Tell  ',  in  the 
spring  of  1804,  were  received  with  prodigious  enthu- 
siasm, and  ever  since  then  it  has  been  a  prime  favorite 
of  the  German  stage.  It  has  no  characters  that  can 
be  called  great,  as  Wallenstein  is  great,  no  complexity 
of  plot,  no  thrilling  surprises ;  and  as  for  its  psychology, 
a  fairy  tale  could  hardly  be  more  simple.     That  which 


■j^^ 


4IO  William  Tell 

has  endeared  it  to  the  Germans  is  its  picturesqueness 
and  its  passionate  zeal  for  freedom. 

The  theme  of  '  Tell  *  is  the  successful  revolt  of  the 
Forest  Cantons  against  their  governors.  Three  actions 
that  have  no  necessary  connection  with  one  another 
— the  conspiracy  of  the  cantons,  the  private  feud  of 
Tell  and  Gessler,  and  the  love-affair  of  Rudenz  and 
Bertha — are  carried  along  together  in  such  a  way  that 
all  find  their  natural  conclusion  in  the  final  celebration 
of  victory.  This  feature  of  the  play  has  often  been 
criticized  as  impairing  its  unity;  and  certainly,  from 
the  conventional  point  of  view  the  objection  has  some 
force.  *  Tell '  is  a  play  without  a  preponderating  hero. 
We  may  say  that  it  has  three  heroes,  or  rather  five, 
since  among  the  conspirators  interest  is  pretty  evenly 
distributed  between  Stauffacher,  Melchthal  and  Walther 
Fiirst.  But  in  reality  the  hero  is  the  Swiss  people 
considered  as  a  unit.  Stauffacher  and  the  other  con- 
spirators interest  us  as  representatives  of  a  suffering 
population.  To  portray  the  suffering  and  the  termina- 
tion of  it  through  sturdy  self-help  is  the  central  purpose 
of  the  play.  This  it  is  which  gives  it  an  essential 
unity,  notwithstanding  the  three  separate  actions. 

The  theme  is  an  inspiring  one,  and  the  modern 
world  owes  Schiller  an  immense  debt  for  presenting  it 
in  austere  simplicity,  unincumbered  with  any  dubious 
or  disturbing  philosophy.  One  cannot  help  loving  so 
good  a  lover  of  freedom ;  for  the  sentiment  does  honor 
to  human  nature,  notwithstanding  some  latter-day 
indications  that  it  is  going  out  of  fashion.  It  may  not 
be  the  highest  and  holiest  of  enthusiasms  for  the  indi- 
vidual,— we  give  our  best  homage  rather  to  self-sur- 


A  Drama  of  Freedom  411 

render, — but  if  any  political  emotion  is  worthy  of  a 
lasting  reverence,  it  is  that  one  which  attaches  men 
to  the  motherland  and  leads  them  to  stand  together 
against  an  alien  oppressor.  Sometimes  it  may  be 
well,  in  God's  long  providence,  that  a  weak  or  a  back- 
ward people  should  be  absorbed  or  ruled  by  a  stronger 
power;  but  the  sentiment  which  leads  it  to  fight  against 
absorption  or  subjugation  is  none  the  less  admirable. 
And  when  the  foreign  domination  is  reckless  and 
inhuman,  standing  for  nothing  but  vindictive  malice 
and  the  greed  of  empire;  and  when  the  victims  of  the 
misrule  are  strong  in  the  simple  virtues  of  the  poor, 
we  have  the  case  in  its  most  appealing  aspect. 

This  is  the  case  that  is  presented  in  '  William  Tell ', 
— the  most  notable  drama  in  modern  literature  upon 
the  theme  of  national  resistance  to  foreign  tyranny. 
Its  influence  in  Germany  as  a  classic  of  political  free- 
dom— during  the  Napoleonic  era  and  later,  when  it 
was  a  question  of  setting  a  limit  to  domestic  absolu- 
tism— has  been  immense.  And  there  is  really  no 
danger  of  its  losing  its  potency;  for  it  appeals  to  a 
sentiment  which,  while  it  may  wax  and  wane  with  the 
movements  of  the  Zeitgeist^  is  now  wrought  into  the 
heart-fiber  of  all  the  occidental  nations,  and  not  least 
of  all — contrary  to  an  opinion  widely  accepted  in  this 
country — of  the  Germans. 

The  uppermost  thought  of  Schiller,  then,  was  to  win 
sympathy  for  freedom  and  the  rights  of  man ;  yet  in 
'  William  Tell '  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  any  species 
of  cloud-born  idealism.  The  bearers  of  the  message 
are  not  fantastic  dreamers,  like  Posa ;  they  do  not  call 
themselves  ambassadors  of  all  mankind,  or  citizens  of 


4X2  William  Tell 

the  centuries  to  come.  They  are  a  plain,  practical  folk, 
whose  wishes  do  not  fly  far  afield  and  who  attempt 
nothing  that  they  cannot  carry  through.  They  are 
not  in  the  least  given  to  fighting  for  the  sake  of  fight- 
ing; on  the  contrary,  the  thought  of  bloodshed  is 
abhorrent  to  them.  All  they  wish  is  to  be  allowed  to 
pursue  their  peaceful,  partriarchal  industries,  as  their 
fathers  did  before  them,  under  laws  of  their  own  devis- 
ing. But  things  have  come  to  such  a  pass  that  their 
lives,  their  property  and  the  honor  of  their  women  are 
not  safe  from  the  malice,  cupidity  and  lust  of  their 
rulers.  And  even  under  such  conditions  the  thought 
of  a  radical  revolution  does  not  occur  to  them:  they 
do  not  rise  against  the  overlordship  of  the  emperor, 
but  only  against  the  brutal  tyranny  of  the  governors 
who  disgrace  him.  Their  final  triumph  opens  no  other 
vista  of  change  than  that,  in  the  future,  another 
emperor  will  send  them  better  governors.  Thus  the 
upshot  of  the  whole  revolution  is  simply  a  provisional 
demonstration  of  Stauffacher's  proposition  that  'tyran- 
nical power  has  a  limit '. 

This  seems,  at  first,  like  a  rather  lame  vindication 
of  the  sacred  majesty  of  freedom,  especially  when  we 
reflect  that  the  whole  question  at  issue  is  not  a  question 
of  independence  at  all,  but  merely  whether  the  cantons 
will  give  up  their  Reichsunniittelbarkeit^ — and  with  it 
certain  old  customs  to  which  they  are  attached, — in 
order  to  become  vassals  of  the  House  of  Hapsburg. 
Were  they  willing  to  do  that, — so  it  is  said  by  Rossel- 
mann  at  the  Riitli  meeting, — all  their  troubles  would 
end  forthwith;  the  cruel  governors  would  deal  kindly 
with  them,  would  *  fondle  '  them.     If  this  is  so, — and 


The  Play  intensely  Human  413 

other  passages  confirm  the  saying  of  the  priest  Rossel- 
mann, — then  it  is  patent  that  the  conduct  of  Gessler  is 
not  the  aimless  brutaHty  of  a  brute,  but  a  policy 
deliberately  pursued  for  the  purpose  of  terrorizing  the 
cantons  into  an  acceptance  of  Hapsburg  overlordship. 
And  this  in  turn  throws  its  own  light  on  the  character 
of  Gessler.  Only  a  blockhead  would  try  to  gain  such 
an  end  in  such  a  way.  This,  however,  is  only  another 
way  of  saying  what  has  often  been  pointed  out,  that 
Gessler  is  simply  a  fairy-tale  tyrant,  copied  very  closely 
from  Tschudi;  a  sort  of  typical  bad  man,  whom  the 
saga,  after  inventing  him  out  of  nothing,  has  made 
as  black  as  possible  in  order  the  more  clearly  and 
strongly  to  justify  the  revolt.  And  yet,  in  the  play, 
Gessler  never  becomes  entirely  ridiculous ;  he  does  not 
seem  a  caricature  of  humanity, — perhaps  because  his- 
tory teems  with  governors  and  viceroys  who  have 
exercised  their  little  brief  authority  very  much  in 
his  spirit,  even  if  they  have  failed  to  commit  his  par- 
ticular atrocities. 

These  last  considerations  are  meant  to  light  up  the 
fact  that  the  effect  of  the  play  does  not,  after  all, 
depend  mainly  upon  its  vindication  of  any  political 
doctrine.  We  are  nowhere  in  the  region  of  abstrac- 
tions. The  sympathy  that  one  feels  for  the  insurgents 
is  in  no  sort  political,  but  purely  human ;  it  is  of  the 
same  kind  that  one  might  feel  for  a  community  of 
Hindu  ryots  in  their  efforts  to  rid  themselves  of  a  man- 
eating  tiger.  Only  in  the  play  this  sympathy  is  very 
much  intensified  by  the  picturesque  lovableness  of  the 
afflicted  population.  It  is  here,  in  the  picture  of  land 
and  people,    that   Schiller's    mature   art,   which   had 


414  William  TcII 

brought  him  to  a  sovereign  mastery  of  stage  effects, 
may  be  said  to  win  its  greatest  triumph.  One  may 
describe  his  method,  fairly  if  somewhat  paradoxically, 
as  that  of  romantic  realism.  What  a  masterpiece  of 
exposition  we  have  in  the  opening  scenes!  The 
beautiful  lake,  at  precisely  its  most  fascinating  point; 
the  fisher-boy,  all  careless  of  the  great  world,  singing 
his  pretty  song  of  the  smiling  but  treacherous  water; 
the  herdsman  and  the  hunter,  announcing  themselves 
above  on  the  rocks  in  characteristic  songs,  and  then 
conversing  for  a  moment  about  the  weather  and  their 
employments;  the  sudden  arrival  of  Baumgarten  with 
his  tale  of  wrong  and  vengeance;  the  storm  on  the 
lake,  and  the  hurried  dialogue  between  the  cautious 
fisherman  and  the  stout-hearted  Tell,  who  *  does  what 
he  cannot  help  doing  ' ;  the  building  of  the  hateful 
Zwing-Uri;  the  death  of  the  slater  and  Bertha's  curse; 
the  grief  and  fury  of  young  Melchthal,  and,  finally,  the 
solemn  covenant  for  life  and  death  of  the  three  leaders, 
— what  variety  and  animation  are  here,  and  what  a 
wealth  of  realistic  detail !  And  how  perfectly  convinc- 
ing it  all  is, — not  a  false  note  anywhere,  nor  a  note 
that  is  held  too  long !  Well  might  Goethe  characterize 
this  exposition  as  '  a  complete  piece  in  itself  and  withal 
an  excellent  one  *.  The  first  act  of  *  Tell '  is  one  of 
the  best  first  acts  in  all  dramatic  literature. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  exposition  seems  to  promise 
somewhat  more  than  is  afterwards  fulfilled.  One  who 
is  familiar  with  Schiller's  usual  method  naturally 
expects  that  something  will  come  of  the  rescue  of 
Baumgarten ;  but  nothing  does  come  of  it  except  to 
throw  a  side-light  upon  the  general  situation  and  to 


Method  of  the  Exposition  415 

bring  out  the  character  of  Tell.  Again,  one  expects 
to  see  more  of  Dame  Gertrud,  the  *  wise  daughter  of 
noble  Iberg'.  One  looks  for  her  to  reappear  under 
circumstances  that  shall  give  her  something  important 
to  do  and  shall  put  her  sagacity  and  courage  to  the 
test.  It  is  not  the  habit  of  Schiller  to  introduce  such 
weighty  personages  at  the  beginning  of  a  play  and  then 
drop  them.  To  understand  him  in  this  instance  one 
has  but  to  remember  that  his  hero  is  always  the  Swiss 
people.  The  Stauffachers,  as  a  shining  example  of 
thrift  and  virtue ;  their  dignified  and  influential  position 
in  the  community ;  their  fine  new  house  that  has  roused 
the  venomous  jealousy  of  Gessler, — all  this  is  part  of 
the  situation,  and  it  is  the  situation  that  counts.  And 
how  superbly  the  picture  is  completed  by  the  meeting 
at  the  Rlitli !  Such  an  old-fashioned  parliament,  held 
of  necessity  under  the  stars  and  in  the  darkness  of 
night,  but  with  all  possible  regard  to  the  ancient  forms, 
was  not  only  a  novel  and  a  picturesque  idea  in  itself, 
but  it  was  the  best  device  which  could  possibly  be 
imagined  for  bringing  sharply  into  view  the  whole 
character  of  the  Swiss,  in  its  winsome,  patriarchal  sim- 
plicity. 

Here  again,  however,  we  have  a  radical  departure 
from  Schiller's  usual  method ;  for  what  is  actually  done 
at  this  seemingly  important  meeting  is,  after  all,  in 
itself  rather  insignificant,  and  without  direct  influence 
upon  the  subsequent  course  of  events.  The  conspira- 
tors decide  to  do  nothing  immediately,  but  to  wait  for 
a  favorable  opportunity  during  the  Christmas  season, 
some  seven  or  eight  weeks  ahead.  This  determination 
obviously  involves  a  halt  in  the  dramatic  action,  so  far 


4i6  William  Tell 

as  the  conspiracy  is  concerned.  In  dealing  with  this 
difficulty,  Schiller  departs  from  his  ordinary  method  of 
concentration  and  allows  himself  to  be  guided  by  the 
epical  character  of  Tschudi's  narrative.  The  result  is 
that  we  have,  somewhat  as  in  Goethe's  *  Gotz  von 
Berlichingen  ',  a  succession  of  dramatic  pictures,  rather 
than  a  drama  bound  together  by  a  severe  logic.  In 
the  third  and  fourth  acts  we  hear  no  more  of  the  con- 
spirators,— aside  from  some  expressions  of  regret  for 
the  delay, — and  attention  is  concentrated  upon  Tell, 
who  has  hitherto  taken  no  part  except  to  rescue  Baum- 
garten  and  to  refuse  his  cooperation  at  the  Riitli,  on 
the  ground  that  he  is  not  the  man  for  a  confab,  and 
that  *  the  strong  man  is  mightiest  alone  '. 

The  character  of  Tell,  as  depicted  by  Schiller,  has 
been  the  subject  of  much  criticism,  the  strictures  relat- 
ing more  particularly  to  his  shooting  the  apple  from 
his  son's  head,  and  then  to  his  subsequent  assassination 
of  Gessler.  There  is  an  oft-quoted  opinion  of  Bismarck, 
which  may  be  quoted  again,  since  it  expresses  so  well 
a  thought  that  has  no  doubt  occurred,  some  time  or 
other,  to  most  readers  and  spectators  of  the  play. 
Busch  makes  Bismarck  say,  under  date  of  October  25, 
1870: 

It  would  have  been  more  natural  and  more  noble,  according 
to  my  ideas,  if,  instead  ot  shooting  at  the  boy,  whom  the  best  of 
archers  might  hit  instead  of  the  apple,  he  had  killed  the  governor 
on  the  spot.  That  would  have  been  righteous  wrath  at  a  cruel 
demand.  I  do  not  like  his  hiding  and  lurking ;  that  does  not 
befit  a  hero — not  even  a  bushwhacker. 

Undoubtedly  such  conduct  as  is  here  suggested  for 
Tell  would  be  more  'heroic  ',  in  accordance  with  our 


Character  of  the  Hero  417 

conventional  ideas  of  heroism.  And  the  thing  would 
have  been  dramatically  feasible.  We  can  imagine 
Tell,  for  example,  as  making  sham  preparations  to 
shoot  at  the  apple  and  then  suddenly  sending  his  arrow 
through  the  heart  of  his  enemy;  and  we  can  also 
imagine  a  further  management  of  the  scene  such  that 
Tell  should  escape  with  his  boy.  Thus  everything 
would  be  accomplished  on  the  public  square  at  Altorf, 
in  full  face  of  the  enemy,  which  is  subsequently  accom- 
plished from  the  secure  ambush  by  the  *  hollow  way  ' 
near  Klissnacht.  Such  conduct  would  have  been 
*  heroic  ',  but  the  obvious  objection  to  it  is  that  it  would 
have  destroyed  the  very  heart  of  the  saga,  which  it  was 
not  for  Schiller  to  make  over  but  to  render  dramatically 
plausible.  It  may  be  urged,  perhaps,  that  a  poet  who 
had  made  Joan  of  Arc  die  in  glory  on  the  battle-field 
need  not  have  been  so  punctilious  in  following  the 
exact  line  ofTschudi's  story.  But  the  cases  are  not 
exactly  parallel.  There  the  alternative  was  a  scene 
of  unmitigated  and  revolting  horror,  which  would  have 
destroyed  the  effect  of  the  tragedy ;  here  it  was  simply 
a  question  of  when  Gessler  should  be  killed  with  an 
arrow.  To  make  Tell  do  just  what  the  saga  makes 
him  do,  and  do  it  without  forfeiting  sympathy,  was  a 
delicate  problem,  which  may  well  have  fascinated 
Schiller,  who  is  surely  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  be 
accused  of  holding  tame  views  as  to  'heroism  '.  At 
any  rate  he  must  have  felt  that  a  Tell  who  should  not 
shoot  at  the  apple  and  hit  it  would  be  simply  no  Tell 
at  all. 

One  who  looks  closely  at  the  famous  scene  will  not 
fail  to  see  that  it  is  very  cleverly  constructed  and  that 


4i8  William  Tefl 

every  objection  which  has  been  urged  against  it  is  really 
met  in  the  text.  In  the  first  place,  Tell  is  not,  and 
was  never  meant  for,  a  hero  of  the  conventional  sort. 
There  is  no  element  of  Quixotry  about  him.  He  is  a 
plain  man,  of  limited  horizon  and  small  gift  of  speech. 
Public  affairs  do  not  particularly  interest  him.  He  is 
a  hardy  mountaineer,  with  a  strong  trust  in  his  own 
strength  and  resourcefulness;  a  good  oarsman  and  a 
great  shot  with  the  crossbow;  but  he  makes  no  fuss 
about  these  things.  Let  it  be  repeated  that  he  is  not 
foolhardy.  The  dangers  of  the  mountain,  which  bulk 
so  large  in  the  imagination  of  his  wife,  are  simply  the 
familiar  element  of  the  life  that  he  loves.  He  treats 
her  timorous  apprehensions  with  the  good-natured 
coolness  of  a  man  who  knows  how  to  take  care  of  him- 
self. He  is  affectionate,  but  not  a  bit  sentimental. 
All  this  makes  an  eminently  natural  and  consistent 
character. 

Now  what  must  such  a  character  do  when  required, 
under  penalty  of  death,  by  a  brutal  tyrant  whose  power 
is  absolute,  to  hit  an  apple  on  his  son's  head  ?  Naturally 
his  first  thought  is  of  the  child,  and  he  tries  to  escape 
by  offering  his  own  life.  The  reply  is  that  he  must 
shoot  or  die  wM  his  child.  Thus  there  is  no  recourse; 
to  refuse  to  shoot  at  all  is  worse  than  to  shoot  and  miss. 
If  he  kill  Gessler  on  the  spot, — and  we  must  suppose 
that  the  thought  occurs  to  him, — he  will  expose  not 
only  himself  but  his  child  and  his  wife  and  children  at 
home  to  the  fury  of  the  troopers.  The  only  safety  lies 
in  making  a  successful  shot.  And  after  all  Tell  knows 
that  he  can  make  it ;  it  is  only  a  question  of  nerve,  and 
he  has  the  nerve  if  he  can  only  find  it.     And  here 


The  Scene  in  the  Hollow  Way        419 

comes  in  an  important  touch  which  is  not  in  Tschudi 
— the  fearless  confidence  of  Walther  Tell  in  his  father's 
marksmanship.  The  effect  of  this  is  to  touch  the  pride 
of  the  bowman,  to  clear  his  eye,  and  to  steady  his 
hand.  It  is  also  a  familiar  fact  that,  with  strong 
natures,  a  terrible  danger,  with  just  one  chance  of 
escape,  may  produce  a  moment  of  perfect  self-control 
while  the  chance  is  taken. 

The  whole  scene,  in  addition  to  its  effectiveness  on 
the  stage,  is  psychologically  true  to  life.  With  all 
deference  to  the  great  qualities  of  the  first  Chancellor 
of  the  German  Empire,  one  must  insist  that  Schiller 
was  a  better  playwright  than  he  and  found  precisely 
the  best  solution  to  his  dramatic  problem. 

And  so  of  the  later  scene  in  the  '  hollow  way  ' ; 
there  is  nothing  wrong  with  it,  unless  it  be  the  great 
length  of  the  soliloquy.  The  killing  of  an  enemy  from 
an  ambush,  without  giving  him  a  chance  for  his  life,  is 
of  course  somewhat  repugnant  to  our  ideas  of  chivalry. 
We  think  of  it  instinctively  as  the  deed  of  a  savage, 
and  not  of  a  man  with  a  pure  heart  and  a  good  cause. 
But  it  must  be  remembered  that  such  ideas  are  them- 
selves conventional,  and  that  we  have  in  *  Tell  '  a 
reversion  to  primitive  conditions  in  which  '  man  stands 
over  against  man  '.  Gessler  has  forfeited  all  right  to 
chivalrous  treatment,  and  Tell  is  no  knight  engaged 
in  fighting  out  a  gentleman's  feud.  What  is  he  to  do.-* 
For  himself,  perhaps,  he  might  take  the  chances  of  a 
fugitive  in  the  mountains,  but  he  cannot  leave  his  wife 
and  children  exposed  to  Gessler 's  vengeful  malice. 
There  is  no  law  to  which  he  can  appeal,  the  only  law 
of  the  land  being  Gessler's  will.     In  such  a  situation, 


420  William  TcU 

clearly,  there  is  no  place  for  refined  and  chivalrous 
compunctions,  or  for  ethical  hair-splitting.  Tell  does 
what  he  must  do.  He  is  in  the  position  of  a  man  pro- 
tecting his  family  from  a  savage  or  a  dangerous  beast, 
and  is  not  called  upon  to  risk  his  own  life  needlessly. 
Every  reader  of  the  old  saga  instinctively  justifies  him. 
His  conduct  is  not  noble  or  heroic,  but  natural  and 
right. 

If  this  is  so,  however,  there  would  seem  to  be  no 
pressing  need  of  his  long  soliloquy.  He  being  ex 
proposito  a  man  of  few  words,  his  sudden  volubility  is 
a  little  surprising,  though  it  should  be  duly  noticed  that 
the  soliloquy  is  not  a  self-defense.  There  is  no 
casuistry  in  it.  Tell  does  not  argue  the  case  with 
himself,  like  one  in  doubt  about  the  rightness  of  his 
conduct.  That  is  as  clear  as  day  to  him,  and  he  never 
wavers  for  a  moment.  But  he  has  time  to  think  while 
waiting,  and  his  soliloquy  is  only  his  thinking  made 
audible.  Delivered  with  even  a  slight  excess  of 
declamatory  fervor,  the  lines  are  ridiculously  out  of 
keeping  with  Tell's  character;  but  they  can  be  spoken 
so  as  to  seem  at  least  tolerably  natural, — as  natural, 
perhaps,  as  any  soliloquy.  And  this  is  true,  let  it  be 
remarked  in  passing,  of  many  and  many  a  passage  in 
Schiller.  To  some  extent,  very  certainly,  his  reputa- 
tion as  a  rhetorician  is  due  to  the  histrionic  spouting  of 
lines  that  do  not  need  to  be  spouted.  To  some  extent, 
but  not  entirely ;  for  even  in  '  Tell '  his  old  fondness 
tor  absurdly  extravagant  forms  of  expression  sometimes 
reasserted  itself.  Thus  what  can  one  make  of  a  plain 
fisherman  who  talks  in  this  wise  about  a  rainstorm  ? 


Introduction  of  Johannes  Parricida       421 

Rage  on,  ye  winds  !     Flame  down,  ye  lightning-bolts  ! 
Burst  open,  clouds  !     Pour  out,  ye  drenching  streams 
Of  heaven,  and  drown  the  land  !     Annihilate 
r  the  very  germ  the  unborn  brood  of  men  ! 
Ye  furious  elements,  assert  your  lordship  ! 
Ye  bears,  ye  ancient  wolves  o'  the  wilderness. 
Come  back  again  !     The  land  belongs  to  you. 
Who  cares  to  live  in  it  bereft  of  freedom  ! 

The  most  serious  blemish  in  *  William  Tell '  is  the 
introduction  of  Johannes  Parricida  in  the  fifth  act, — an 
idea  which  Goethe  attributed  to  feminine  influence  of 
some  sort.i  The  effect  of  it  is  to  convert  the  rugged, 
manly  Tell  of  the  preceding  acts  into  a  sanctimonious 
Pharisee  with  whom  one  can  have  little  sympathy. 
No  doubt  there  is  a  moral  difference  between  his  act 
and  that  of  Parricida,  but  it  is  a  difference  which  one 
does  not  wish  to  hear  Tell  himself  dilate  upon.  Seeing 
that  the  murdered  emperor  was  solely  responsible  for 
the  brutal  governors  and  thus  indirectly  for  all  the 
woes  of  Switzerland;  and  seeing,  too,  that  his  death 
is  the  only  guarantee  we  have  at  the  end  that  the 
kiUing  of  Gessler  will  do  any  good,  and  not  simply 
have  the  effect  to  bring  down  upon  the  land,  including 
Tell  and  his  family,  the  vengeance  of  some  still  more 
fiendish  successor, — considering  all  this,  one  would 
rather  not  hear  those  horrified  ejaculations  of  Tell 
about  the  pollution  of  the  murderer's  presence.     They 

1  See  Eckermann's  "Gcsprache",  under  date  of  March  i6,  1831. 
What  Goethe  there  says,  however,  is  in  flat  contradiction  of  the  follow- 
ing passage  contained  in  a  letter  of  Schiller  to  Iffland,  written  April  14, 
1804:  "Auch  Goethe  ist  mit  mir  tiberzeugt,  dasz  ohne  jenen  Monolog 
und  ohne  die  persOnliche  Erscheinung  des  Parricida  der  Tell  sich  gar 
nicht  hatte  denken  lassen." 


422  William  Tell 

may  produce  a  certain  stagy  effect  of  contrast,  but  the 
effect  was  not  worth  producing  at  the  expense  of  Tell's 
character. 

As  for  the  love-story  in  *  William  Tell ',  it  is  hardly 
of  sufficient  weight  to  merit  extended  discussion.  Both 
Bertha  and  Rudenz  are  rather  tamely  and  conven- 
tionally drawn,  to  meet  the  need  of  a  pair  of  romantic 
lovers;  they  evidently  cost  their  creator  no  very 
strenuous  communings  with  the  Genius  of  Art.  Their 
private  affair  of  the  heart  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
Tell  episode  and  is  but  loosely  related  to  the  popular 
uprising.  Their  absence  would  not  be  very  seriously 
felt  in  the  drama,  save  that  one  would  not  like  to  miss 
Attinghausen  as  a  picturesque  representative  of  the  old 
patriarchal  nobility.  The  two  scenes  in  which  he 
appears  are  in  themselves  admirable. 


CHAPTER   XXI 

^be  ;6n5.— TIlntinlsbeD  fMa^s,  (rran0latfon0  anD 
BDaptations 

Es  stiirzt  ihn  mitten  in  der  Bahn, 
Es  reiszt  ihn  fort  vom  vollen  Leben. 

'  William  Tell\ 

Our  story  of  Schiller's  life  draws  to  a  close.  After 
the  completion  of  *  William  Tell '  his  tireless  energy 
of  production  found  its  next  theme  in  the  story  of 
Dmitri,  the  reputed  son  of  Ivan  the  Terrible.  Just 
how  and  whence  the  suggestion  came  to  him  is 
unknown,  but  the  connection  of  things  is  patent  enough 
in  a  general  way.  Far-reaching  intrigues  in  high  life 
had  always  had  a  fascination  for  him,  and  recent  studies 
undertaken  for  *  Warbeck  '  had  interested  him  in  the 
type  of  the  pretender  whose  kingly  bearing  seems  to 
betoken  kingly  blood.  In  a  work  upon  Russia, — a 
land  which  had  been  brought  closer  to  the  Schiller 
household  by  the  appointment  of  Wilhelm  von  Wolzo- 
gen  as  Weimarian  envoy  to  the  Czar, — he  read  anew 
the  history  of  the  •  false  Dmitri ',  and  was  struck  by  its 
dramatic  capabilities.  In  'Warbeck  '  he  had  thought 
to  portray  a  pretender  who  knew  that  his  claims  were 
fraudulent;  in  Dmitri  he  found  one  who  believed  in 
himself.  The  psychological  problem,  and  the  idea 
of  conquering  an  entirely  new  territory  for  the  German 

423 


424        Unfinished  Plays  and  Adaptations 

drama,  attracted  him  strongly,  and  he  set  about  the 
laborious  task  of  self-orientation. 

Ere  long,  however,  there  came  an  interruption 
which,  for  a  while,  seemed  to  promise  a  momentous 
change  in  the  tenor  of  his  life.  Iffland  wished  to  lure 
him  to  Berlin  and  had  intimated  that  the  Prussian 
government  might  be  disposed  to  offer  inducements. 
Schiller  was  not  entirely  averse  to  the  idea ;  at  least 
he  thought  it  worth  while  to  reconnoitre.  So,  toward 
the  end  of  April,  1804,  he  set  out  with  wife  and  children 
for  the  Prussian  capital,  where  he  was  received  with  the 
greatest  cordiality.  The  king  and  queen  of  Prussia, 
to  whom  he  was  presented,  were  very  gracious,  and  it 
was  all  decidedly  pleasant.  So  at  least  he  thought 
and  so  his  wife  pretended  to  think, — keeping  down  for 
her  husband's  sake  the  dismay  which  a  daughter 
of  fair  Thuringia  could  not  help  feeling  at  the 
thought  of  making  a  home  on  the  flat  banks  of  the 
Spree.  After  a  fortnight  Schiller  returned  to  Weimar 
and  was  presently  invited  by  the  Prussian  minister, 
Beyme,  to  name  his  terms.  Now  came  the  rub;  for 
he  did  not  really  wish  to  leave  Weimar.  He  had  taken 
deep  root  there  and  his  affections  clung  to  the  place  for 
the  sake  of  Goethe  and  a  few  other  friends.  On  the 
other  hand,  his  stipend  was  but  four  hundred  thalers, 
and  his  other  sources  of  income  were  by  no  means  such 
as  to  free  him  from  anxiety  about  the  future  of  his 
family.  Feeling  that  it  was  his  duty  to  better  his 
position  if  possible,  he  laid  his  case  before  Karl  August, 
who  promptly  doubled  his  stipend.  After  this  it  was 
virtually  impossible  for  him  to  leave  Weimar.  Unwill- 
ing  nevertheless   to   renounce   the    Berlin    prospects 


The  Homage  of  the  Arts  425 

altogether,  he  wrote  to  Beyme  that  for  a  consideration 
of  two  thousand  thalers  annually  he  would  reside  a  few 
months  of  each  year  in  Berlin.  To  this  proposition 
Beyme  made  no  answer.  Possibly  he  thought  the 
price  too  high  for  a  fractional  poet. 

Pending  these  futile  negotiations  Schiller  worked 
with  great  zest  upon  *  Demetrius  ', — reading,  excerpt- 
ing, examining  maps  and  pictures,  schematizing, 
balancing  possibilities^  and  so  forth.  But  again  he 
was  interrupted ;  first  "by  an  unusually  severe  illness, 
which  brought  him  to  death's  door  and  left  him  for 
weeks  in  a  condition  of  helpless  languor,  and  then  by 
the  distractions  incident  to  the  arrival  of  the  hereditary 
Prince  of  Weimar  with  his  Russian  bride,  Maria 
Paulovna.  Golden  reports  had  preceded  this  princess, 
who  was  expected  to  reach  Weimar  in  November,  and 
preparations  were  made  to  welcome  her  with  distin- 
guished honors.  For  some  reason  Goethe,  in  his 
capacity  of  director  of  the  theater,  remained  inactive 
amid  the  general  flutter  until  a  few  days  before  the 
great  event,  when  he  besought  Schiller  to  come  to  the 
rescue.  The  result  was  *  The  Homage  of  the  Arts  ', 
called  by  its  author  a  *  prologue  '  r 

We  have  a  rustic  scene  in  which  country-folk  plant  an 
orange-tree  and  invoke  the  blessing  of  pagan  divinities. 
The  Genius  of  Art  appears,  and  with  him  the  seven 
goddesses:  Architecture,  Sculpture,  Painting,  Poetry, 
Music,  Dance  and  Drama.  Genius  asks  for  an  explana- 
tion of  the  tree-planting,  and  is  told  by  the  rustics  that 
it  is  an  act  of  homage  to  their  new  queen,  who  has  come 
from  high  imperial  halls  to  live  in  their  humble  valley. 
They  wish  to  bind  her  to  them  by  keeping  her  reminded 


426       Unfinished  Plays  and  Adaptations 

of  home.  On  hearing  this  Genius  assures  them  that 
the  queen  will  not  find  all  things  strange  in  her  new 
home:  old  friends  are  there  after  all.  Then  he  leads 
forward  his  seven  goddesses,  who  explain  themselves 
and  say  pretty  things  about  Russia.  '  The  Homage 
of  the  Arts  '  is  in  no  sense  a  weighty  production,  but 
its  graceful  verse  and  well-turned  compliments  had  the 
desired  effect.      Maria  Paulovna  was  pleased  with  it. 

The  reaction  from  these  Russophile  festivities  fell 
heavily  upon  Schiller  and  he  became  gradually  weaker. 
Unequal  to  creative  effort  he  undertook  a  translation 
of  Racine's  *  Phedre  '  in  German  pentameters  and 
finished  it  about  the  middle  of  January,  1805.  After 
this  he  threw  himself  with  great  energy  upon  '  Deme- 
trius ',  but  it  was  the  final  flicker  of  a  dying  flame.  In 
February  came  a  fresh  prostration,  and  it  was  then 
evident  that  the  end  was  near.  Nevertheless  he 
worked  on  for  a  few  weeks  longer  with  feverish  eager- 
ness. On  the  evening  of  April  29,  he  went  to  the 
theater.  After  the  play  was  over,  the  young  Voss, — 
a  son  of  the  poet,  who  had  attached  himself  warmly  to 
Schiller  during  these  latest  years, — came  to  him  to 
attend  him  home.  He  found  him  in  a  violent  fever, 
which  soon  led  to  exhaustion  and  delirium.  This  time 
the  strong  will  of  the  sufferer  and  the  eager  offices  of 
wife  and  physician  proved  unavailing.  He  lingered 
on  a  few  days  longer,  now  and  then  in  his  delirium 
reciting  disconnected  verse  or  scraps  of  Latin,  until  the 
end  came,  on  the  afternoon  of  the  9th  of  May.  Three 
days  later,  between  twelve  and  one  o'clock  at  night, 
the  body  of  the  dead  man  was  borne  by  a  little  group 
of  friends  through  the   silent  and  deserted  streets   of 


Death  of  Schiller  427 

Weimar,  and  lowered  into  a  vault  in  the  churchyard 
of  St.  James.  There  it  remained  until  1826,  when  the 
remains  were  exhumed  and,  after  some  curious  vicissi- 
tudes, were  placed  in  an  oaken  coffin  and  deposited  in 
the  ducal  mausoleum,  where  they  now  rest  near  those 
of  Goethe  and  Karl  August.^ 

The  death  of  Schiller  made  many  mourners.  Goethe, 
who  had  himself  been  very  ill,  wrote  to  a  friend  in 
Berlin :  *  I  thought  to  lose  myself,  and  now  I  lose  a 
friend,  and  with  him  the  half  of  my  existence.'  From 
every  hand  came  tokens  of  sympathy  for  the  widow. 
Maria  Paulovna  asked  for  the  privilege  of  caring  for 
the  children.  Queen  Luise  of  Prussia  sent  a  message 
of  heartfelt  condolence.  Cotta,  whose  business  rela- 
tions with  Schiller  had  given  rise  to  a  warm  personal 
affection,  made  generous  offers  of  financial  aid.  As 
for  the  nation  at  large,  however,  it  can  hardly  be  said 
that  much  notice  was  taken  of  the  event.  Schiller  had 
led  a  secluded  life,  had  been  but  little  in  the  public 
eye,  and  his  personality  was  known  to  but  few.  What 
should  the  passing  of  a  single  dreamer  signify  in  the 
stirring  epoch  of  Austerlitz  and  Jena  .-*  Not  many 
knew  that  one  of  the  real  immortals  had  ceased   to 

1  In  the  year  1805  it  was  still  usual  at  Weimar  to  have  the  bodies  of 
the  dead  borne  to  the  grave  in  the  night  by  hired  workmen.  On  the 
death  of  Schiller  the  burgomaster  gave  orders  in  accordance  with  the 
custom,  and  it  was  with  some  difficulty  that  friends  of  the  dead  man 
succeeded  in  displacing  the  guild  on  which  the  lot  had  fallen  and  secur- 
ing for  themselves  the  privilege  of  acting  as  bearers.  While  lying  in  the 
old  churchyard  the  bones  of  Schiller  became  commingled  with  others  in 
the  vault,  so  that  the  proper  reassembling  of  his  mortal  framework,  in  the 
year  1826,  was  a  matter  of  some  perplexity.  For  a  while  the  skull  was 
exhibited  in  the  court  library,  where  it  called  forth  Goethe's  well-known 
poem. 


428       Unfinished  Plays  and  Adaptations 

breathe, — one  whose  figure  would  loom  up  larger  and 
larger  in  receding  time,  like  a  high  mountain  in  the 
receding  distance. 

But  leaving  this  subject,  of  Schiller's  subsequent 
influence  and  reputation,  for  discussion  in  the  conclud- 
ing chapter,  let  us  now  turn  to  a  brief  survey  of  his 
unfinished  plays  and  of  his  more  important  work  as 
translator  and  adapter. 

And  first,  '  Demetrius  ' ,  of  which  one  may  say,  as 
Schiller  said  of  the  Faust-fragment  of  1790,  that  it  is 
the  torso  of  a  Hercules.  Such  extant  portions  as  had 
reached  something  like  a  final  form  in  verse  tell  of  a 
tragedy  that  bade  fair  to  rank  with  '  Wallenstein  ', 
perhaps  to  surpass  'Wallenstein',  in  dramatic  power 
and  psychological  interest.  The  completed  portions 
pertain  mainly  to  the  first  two  acts ;  for  the  rest  we 
have  an  immense  mass  of  schemes,  arguments,  excerpts 
and  collectanea.  To  read  through  this  material,  par- 
ticularly the  various  schemes  laboriously  written  out  in 
numberless  revisions,  conveys  at  first  an  impression  of 
over-solicitude,  as  if  erudition  and  logical  analysis  were 
being  relied  upon  to  take  the  place  of  slackening 
inspiration.  The  moment  one  turns  to  the  finished 
scenes,  however,  one  sees  that  the  poetic  spring  was 
still  flowing  in  full  measure ;  and  one  is  amazed  at  the 
creative  power  which  could  still,  with  death  knocking 
at  the  door,  so  swiftly  and  so  surely  fashion  great 
poetry  out  of  dull  and  contradictory  books. 

The  story  of  the  false  Demetrius  had  been  familiar 
to  Schiller  from  his  youth,  but  there  is  no  evidence 
that  he  ever  thought  of  dramatizing  it  until  the  year 
1802,  when  we  hear  of  an  intended  drama  to  be  called 


The  Historical  Dmitri  429 

'The  Bloody  Marriage  at  Moscow*.  Just  as  in  the 
cases  of  Fiesco  and  Wallenstein,  he  found  here  a 
notable  conspirator  whose  character  and  motives  were 
the  subject  of  dispute  among  the  historians.  The  more 
usual  view  was  that  Demetrius  was  an  escaped  monk 
who  gave  himself  out  as  the  son  of  Ivan  the  Terrible, 
having  either  himself  invented  the  fraud  or  else  taken 
upon  himself  a  role  that  was  suggested  to  him  by  some 
one  else.  On  the  other  hand,  there  were  those  who 
regarded  him  as  the  genuine  son  of  Ivan  and  thus 
entitled  to  the  throne  which  he  conquered  from  the 
usurper,  Boris  Gudunofif,  in  the  year  1605.  Fraudulent 
pretender,  or  genuine  Czar  of  the  blood  of  Rurik, — this 
was  the  great  question.  With  a  fine  dramatic  intuition 
Schiller  conceived  a  third  possibility,  namely,  that 
Demetrius,  though  not  in  reality  Ivan's  son,  fully 
believed  himself  to  be  such  until  he  had  triumphed, 
and  then,  though  undeceived,  went  on  his  calamitous 
way  as  a  tyrant  because  he  could  not  turn  back. 

His  first  thought  was  to  begin  with  a  scene  at  Sambor 
in  Galicia,  wherein  the  escaped  monk  Grischka,  tarry- 
ing at  the  house  of  Mnischek  in  complete  ignorance  of 
his  high  birth,  but  given  none  the  less  to  ambitious 
dreaming,  should  be  made  known  as  Ivan's  son, 
Demetrius,  supposed  to  have  been  murdered  sixteen 
years  before  at  the  instigation  of  Boris.  Several 
scenes,  interesting  in  their  way  but  somewhat  lacking 
in  horizon,  were  elaborated  in  accordance  with  this 
idea.  Then,  however,  the  plan  was  modified  and  it 
was  decided  to  begin  directly  with  a  session  of  the 
Polish  parliament  at  Cracow,  at  which  Demetrius  should 
appear  and  triumphantly  assert  his  claims  before  King 


430       Unfinished  Plays  and  Adaptations 

Sigismund  and  the  assembled  nobles.  This  scene, 
though  left  imperfect  here  and  there,  is  certainly  one 
of  the  best  that  ever  came  from  Schiller's  pen.  As 
usual  we  have  a  bit  of  world-drama,  for  the  element 
out  of  which  the  action  grows  is  the  national  antipathy 
of  Poles  and  Russians.  And  what  an  interesting  figure 
is  the  young  Demetrius,  confronting  all  the  pomp  and 
power  with  the  easy  dignity  of  one  born  to  kingship, 
and  carrying  the  parliament  with  him  by  dint  of  his 
own  self-confidence  and  royal  bearing.  He  is  essen- 
tially a  new  creation,  unlike  any  of  Schiller's  other 
youthful  heroes,  though  a  certain  family  resemblance 
is  of  course  discernible.  Ambition  of  power  is  the  great 
mainspring  of  his  character,  and  he  is  as  unscrupulous 
as  Napoleon.  Nevertheless  he  has  his  sentimental  and 
his  ethical  promptings,  and  the  whole  basis  of  his  con- 
duct in  this  first  part  of  the  play  is  his  perfect  confidence 
that  he  is  the  son  of  Ivan. 

It  is  thus  ever  to  be  regretted  that  Schiller  did  not 
live  to  write  the  later  scenes  in  which  Demetrius,  on 
the  eve  of  his  triumphant  entry  into  Moscow,  should 
be  approached  by  the  fabricator  dolt  and  told  the  true 
story  of  his  vulgar  birth.  Here,  just  as  in  the  '  CEdipus 
Rex  ',  was  a  stupendous  tragic  fate,  unconnected  with 
any  conscious  guilt  and  growing  entirely  out  of  the 
circumstances.  What  should  Demetrius  do  .-*  What 
he  was  to  say  we  know  from  a  prose  sketch  which  runs 
as  follows : 

You  [addressed  to  the  fabricator  dolt,  who  appears  in  the 
manuscript  as  X]  have  pierced  the  heart  of  my  life,  you  have 
taken  from  me  my  faith  in  myself.  Away,  Courage  and  Hope  ! 
Away,  joyous  self-confidence  !     I  am  caught  in  a  lie.     I  am  at 


Poetic  Promise  of  Demetrius  431 

variance  with  myself.  I  am  an  enemy  ^of  mankind.  I  and 
truth  are  parted  forever  !  What  ?  Shall  I  undeceive  the  people  ? 
Unmask  myself  as  a  deceiver  ? — I  must  go  forward.  I  must 
stand  firm,  and  yet  I  can  do  it  no  longer  in  the  strength  of 
inward  conviction.  Murder  and  blood  must  maintain  me  in  my 
position.  How  shall  I  meet  the  Czarina  ?  How  shall  I  enter 
Moscow  amid  the  plaudits  of  the  people,  with  this  lie  in  my 
heart  ? 

One  sees  from  this  whither  Schiller's  idea  was  tend- 
ing. From  the  time  that  Demetrius  is  undeceived  his 
character  changes.  The  youth  who,  with  truth  on 
his  side,  had  it  in  him  to  become  a  great  and  wise 
ruler,  breaks  with  the  moral  law  and  becomes  a  Mac- 
beth, or  a  Richard  the  Third.  His  course  from  this 
time  on  is  flecked  with  blood  and  dishonored  by- 
treachery  and  tyranny.  As  Czar  he  excites  the  hatred 
of  the  Russians  by  his  impolitic  contempt  of  their 
customs.  His  Poles  are  insolent  and  trouble  begins  to 
brew  about  him.  Finally  there  is  an  uprising  against 
him  and  he  falls — the  victim  of  his  own  v/3pi5. 

Had  Schiller  been  permitted  by  fate  to  complete 
♦  Demetrius  ',  we  should  have  had,  it  is  safe  to  say,  the 
most  impressive  of  all  his  heroes,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  Wallenstein.  And  we  should  have  had 
also,  in  all  probability,  the  very  best  of  his  historical 
tragedies;  for  his  plan  had  provided  for  an  unusually 
large  number  of  highly  promising  scenes.  The  pic- 
turesque Polish  parliament,  with  its  tumultuous  ending ; 
the  first  meeting  of  Demetrius  with  his  reputed  mother ; 
the  scene  with  the  fabricator  doli;  the  triumphal  entry 
into  Moscow;  Demetrius  as  Czar  in  the  Kremlin;  his 
love  intrigues  with  Axinia  and  his  perfunctory  marriage 
to  Marina ;  the  final  gathering  and  bursting  of  the  storm 


432        Unfinished  Plays  and  Adaptations 

of  indignation, — all  this  would  have  been  wrought  into 
a  dramatic  masterpiece  of  the  first  order. 

Like  '  Demetrius  '  in  having  a  royal  pretender  for  a 
hero,  but  unlike  it  in  every  other  respect,  is  the  play 
which  was  to  have  been  called  *  Warbeck  * .  To  this 
subject  Schiller's  attention  was  drawn  in  the  summer 
of  1799,  while  reading  English  history  in  Rapin  de 
Thoyras.  During  the  ensuing  years  he  took  it  up 
repeatedly,  but  each  time  dropped  it  in  favor  of  some 
other  theme.  At  the  time  of  his  death  he  left  *  War- 
beck  '  material  sufficient  to  make  eighty-four  pages  of 
octavo  print.  The  most  of  this  material  consists  of 
prose  schemes,  but  there  are  also  several  hundred 
verses,  some  of  them  complete,  others  with  lacunae, 
great  or  small.  By  a  close  study  of  these  data  one 
can  make  out  the  general  character  of  the  proposed 
play  and  the  essential  lineaments  of  the  more  important 
characters.  The  play  was  not  to  have  been  a  tragedy, 
and  it  would  have  owed  to  history  hardly  anything 
more  than  its  milieu  and  a  few  names.  The  plan  was 
something  like  this: 

About  the  year  1492  there  turns  up  at  Brussels,  at 
the  court  of  Margaret,  Duchess  of  Burgundy,  a  young 
man  calling  himself  Warbeck.  He  is  ignorant  of  his 
own  birth,  and  does  not  suppose  himself  to  be  of  royal 
blood,  but  he  has  a  strong  resemblance  to  Edward  the 
Fourth  of  England.  Being  herself  of  York  blood  and 
wishing  to  make  trouble  for  the  Tudor  king,  Henry 
the  Seventh,  Margaret  persuades  the  stranger  to  pre- 
tend that  he  is  the  son  of  Edward  the  Fourth, — one  of 
the  two  boys  supposed  to  have  been  murdered  in  the 
tower  by  Richard  of  Gloucester.      He  consents  to  the 


Plan  of  Warbecfc 


433 


fraud  and  speedily  acquires  a  following  as  pretender  to 
the  English  throne.  In  reality  Margaret  despises  him 
and  merely  wishes  to  use  him  as  a  tool,  but  it  soon 
appears  that  Warbeck  is  a  man  of  character  who  insists 
on  playing  his  assumed  role  in  a  manner  worthy  of  an 
English  sovereign.  Preparations  are  made  for  an 
invasion  of  England  to  assert  his  claim.  Meanwhile 
Warbeck  falls  in  love  with  Adelaide,  a  princess  of 
Brittany,  for  whom  the  imperious  Margaret  has  other 
designs.  Presently  a  man  named  Simnel  appears, 
asserting  fraudulently  that  he  is  a  son  of  the  fourth 
Edward.  He  and  Warbeck  fight  a  duel  and  Simnel 
is  killed.  Then  the  real  Edward  Plantagenet  appears, 
with  a  convincing  story  of  his  own  wonderful  escape 
from  the  executioner  in  the  Tower.  A  murderous 
plot  is  concocted  against  the  boy's  life,  but  he  is  saved 
by  Warbeck,  who  acknowledges  him  as  his  rightful 
king.  All  this  time  Warbeck  has  supposed  himself  to 
be  acting  a  part  of  pure  fraud ;  and  as  he  is  really  a 
man  of  honor,  and  in  love  with  an  amiable  princess, 
the  role  of  deceit  has  become  increasingly  hateful  to 
him.  At  last,  however,  the  old  Earl  of  Kildare 
arrives,  and  from  the  depths  of  his  superior  knowledge 
makes  it  plain  that  Warbeck  is  in  truth  a  natural  son 
of  Edward  the  Fourth.  Thus  all  ends  romantically 
and  we  have  no  adumbration  of  that  later  scene  of  the 
year  1499,  when  Perkin  Warbeck  was  drawn  and 
quartered  at  Tyburn. 

From  this  plan  it  is  clear  that  the  principal  stress 
was  to  fall  on  the  character  of  Warbeck,  conceived  as 
a  high-minded  youth  entangled  in  an  odious  lie.  To 
quote  Schiller's    exact  words:    *  The  problem  of  the 


434        Unfinished  Plays  and  Adaptations 

piece  is  to  carry  him  (Warbeck)  ever  deeper  into  situa- 
tions in  which  his  deceit  brings  him  to  despair,  and 
to  let  his  natural  truthfulness  increase  as  the  circum- 
stances force  him  to  deception.'  To  arouse  sympathy 
for  such  a  character  would  have  been,  to  say  the  least, 
a  difficult  task ;  one  cannot  wonder  that  Schiller  was 
perplexed  by  it.  The  schemes  indicate  that  his  main 
reliance  was  the  love-story,  which  would  have  been 
very  prominent.  Of  the  other  characters,  the  most 
important,  probably,  was  the  Duchess  Margaret,  con- 
ceived as  a  selfish,  overbearing,  heartless  creature,  in 
sharp  contrast  with  the  romantic  Adelaide.  On  the 
whole,  judging  from  such  imperfect  data  as  we  possess, 
one  must  regard  '  Warbeck  '  as  a  far  less  powerful  and 
promising  design  than  '  Demetrius  ' . 

Contemporaneous  with  *  Warbeck  '  and  '  Demetrius  ', 
and  broadly  similar  to  them  in  that  it  was  to  deal  with 
a  political  adventurer  and  to  present  an  elaborate  pic- 
ture of  intrigue  in  high  life,  is  the  plan  of  a  play  which 
was  at  first  called  '  Count  Konigsmark  '.  The  subject 
occupied  the  thoughts  of  Schiller  for  some  little  time 
in  the  summer  of  1804,  until  it  was  dropped  in  favor 
of  *  Demetrius  '.  Count  Konigsmark  was  a  nobleman 
who  was  murdered  in  the  year  1694,  at  the  court  of 
Duke  George  I.,  of  Hannover,  in  consequence  of  a  sup- 
posed criminal  relation  with  the  Duchess  Sophia,  a 
princess  of  the  house  of  Celle.  As  he  mused  upon  the 
dramatic  possibilities  of  the  story,  Schiller  became  less 
interested  in  Konigsmark  and  more  in  the  compromised 
duchess;  so  the  name  of  the  piece  was  changed  to 
•  The  Princess  of  Celle  '.  From  his  extant  notes  and 
sketches  one  can  make  out  that  the  heroine  was  con- 


The  Knights  of  Malta  435 

ceived,  like  Mary  Stuart,  as  a  noble  sufferer.  She  is 
a  virtuous  lady  who  is  given  in  marriage  for  political 
reasons  to  an  unloved  and  licentious  duke,  whose 
mistresses  insult  her.  In  her  misery  she  makes  a  friend 
of  the  chivalrous  but  inflammable  Konigsmark.  Their 
relation  excites  suspicion,  Konigsmark  is  murdered 
and  the  duchess  sent  to  prison, — disgraced  but  inno- 
cent. In  prison  she  finds  peace  of  soul,  just  as  Mary 
Stuart  finds  it  in  the  presence  of  death. 

Much  older  than  any  of  these  plans  and  entirely 
different  from  them,  is  that  of  the  '  Knights  of  Malta  ', 
which  dates  back  to  the  year  1788.  While  pursuing 
his  studies  for  '  Don  Carlos  '  Schiller  had  become 
greatly  interested  in  the  story  of  La  Valette's  heroic 
defense  of  Malta  in  1565.  It  seemed  to  him  to  promise 
well  for  a  tragedy  in  the  Greek  style, — with  a  chorus, 
a  simple  plot  and  few  characters.  He  began  work 
upon  it,  but  was  soon  diverted  by  his  historical  studies. 
In  subsequent  years,  however,  he  returned  to  '  The 
Knights  of  Malta  '  from  time  to  time,  and  as  late  as 
1803  was  strongly  minded  to  attempt  the  completion 
of  the  work.  During  these  fifteen  years  the  plan 
underwent  various  changes.  Although  certain  aspects 
of  the  subject  made  it  very  attractive  to  Schiller,  he 
felt  from  the  first  that  it  lacked  the  '  salient  point '  of 
a  good  tragedy.  The  extant  data  show  him  working 
tentatively  with  one  idea  after  another,  without  ever 
finding  exactly  what  he  wanted.  This  being  so,  it  is 
hardly  worth  while  to  go  minutely  into  the  history  of 
his  plans  and  perplexities. 

'  The  Knights  of  Malta  '  was  to  have  been  a  poetic 
tragedy  of  heroic  devotion,   friendship  and  self-sacri- 


436       Unfinished  Pkys  and  Adaptations 

fice.  The  exposition,  as  we  have  it  in  outline,  shows, 
— partly  by  means  of  a  chorus  of  *  spiritual '  knights, — 
the  desperate  plight  of  the  besieged  Christians.  The 
crisis  requires  absolute  devotion  to  the  principles  of 
the  order,  but  the  knights  have  degenerated.  Two  of 
them  are  quarreling  over  a  captured  Greek  girl,  and 
so  forth.  La  Valette,  the  grandmaster,  institutes  stern 
measures  of  reform  to  restore  the  ancient  morale  of 
the  order,  and  these  provoke  intrigue  and  opposition. 
The  defenders  of  Fort  St.  Elmo  ask  to  be  relieved,  on 
the  ground  that  the  place  cannot  be  held.  La  Valette 
decides  that  St.  Elmo  must  be  defended  to  the  last:  it 
is  a  case  where  a  few  must  be  ready  to  sacrifice  them- 
selves for  their  principles  and  for  the  order  as  a  whole. 
Among  those  thus  sent  to  death  is  La  Valette 's  own 
son,  who  leaves  behind  a  very  dear  friend.  In  the  end 
the  defenders  of  St.  Elmo  are*. killed,  but  Malta  and 
the  order  are  saved.     The  Turks  raise  the  siege. 

Reading  this  outline  one  has  no  great  difficulty  in 
seeing  why  Schiller's  dramatic  instinct  could  never  be 
satisfied  with  '  The  Knights  of  Malta  ' .  It  has  no 
tragic  climax,  no  point  upon  which  the  action  could 
be  focused.  As  a  stage-play  it  would  have  had  small 
chance  of  favor,  on  account  of  its  chorus  and  its  entire 
lack  of  female  characters.  Romantic  love  was  to  be 
left  out  and  friendship  to  take  its  place.  But  could 
anything  worth  while  have  been  done  with  the  heroics 
of  friendship  after  ♦  Don  Carlos  '  }  On  the  whole  one 
must  regard  it  as  a  great  good  fortune  for  the  German 
drama  that,  when  Schiller  was  hesitating  in  1796 
between  *  Wallenstein  '  and  'The  Knights  of  Malta  ', 
the  former  carried  the  day.     As  for  the  pseudo-antique 


Other  Unfinished  Plays  437 

chorus,  the  best  that  he  could  do  with  that,  by  way 
of  an  experiment,  was  done  later  in  *  The  Bride  of 
Messina  ' . 

Besides  those  already  mentioned,  there  are  a  num- 
ber of  other  plans  which  deserve  a  word,  were  it  only 
to  show  the  wide  range  of  Schiller's  interest  and  the 
eagerness  of  his  quest  after  variety.  Thus  we  find  him 
occupied,  at  one  time  or  another,  with  two  antique 
themes,  *  Aggripina  '  and  *  The  Death  of  Themisto- 
cles  ' ;  with  an  Anglo-Saxon  theme  of  the  tenth  cen- 
tury, *  Elfride  ',  and  with  a  medieval  romantic  theme, 
*  The  Countess  of  Flanders  ' .  Then  we  find  two 
subjects  that  were  suggested  by  the  reading  of  modern 
travels,  *  The  Ship  '  and  *  The  Filibuster  '.  In  one  the 
scene  was  to  be  laid  on  some  distant  coast  or  island, 
and  the  plot  was  to  illustrate  sea-life  and  commerce, 
with  their  characteristic  types.  In  the  other  the  whole 
action  was  to  take  place  on  shipboard,  bringing  in  a 
mutiny,  ship's  justice,  a  sea-fight,  trade  with  savages, 
and  so  forth.  Finally  there  are  sketches  of  two  other 
plays,  based  on  the  annals  of  crime.  In  one  of  them, 
called  *  The  Children  of  the  House  ',  the  hero  was  to 
be  a  thorough  scoundrel,  whom  Nemesis  would  impel 
mysteriously  to  a  course  of  conduct  whereby  his  long 
hidden  crimes  would  be  discovered.  The  other, 
entitled  'The  Police  ',  was  to  present  a  story  of  crime 
and  its  discovery  at  Paris, — with  telling  realistic  pic- 
tures for  which  Schiller  took  a  mass  of  interesting 
notes. 

Verily,  a  rich  collection,  which  shows  that  a  good 
deal  of  Schiller  failed  to  find  expression  in  the  works 
he  completed.     One  could  wish  particularly  that  we 


438       Unfinished  Plays  and  Adaptations 

had  those  sea-plays,  and  the  Parisian  criminal  drama. 
Perhaps  in  that  case  the  critics  who  have  taxed  him 
with  this  or  that  narrowness  would  have  found  it  more 
difficult  to  make  headway. 

We  turn  now  from  these  dramatic  might-have-beens 
to  glance  at  the  translations  and  adaptations  made  for 
the  Weimar  theater.^  And  first  it  should  be  observed 
that  in  all  these,  without  exception,  Schiller's  point  of 
view  was  that  of  a  practical  playwright,  not  that  of  a 
literary  virtuoso.  His  concern  was  to  enrich  the 
repertory  of  the  theater  with  good  acting  plays;  plays 
which,  when  put  upon  the  boards,  would  *go',  and 
go  with  such  actors  and  such  properties  as  were  to  be 
had.  In  his  efforts  to  do  this  he  was  never  restrained 
by  any  feeling  of  piety  toward  his  originals  from  making 
such  changes  as  commended  themselves  to  his  drama- 
turgic principles  or  instinct.  The  first  work  of  this 
kind  undertaken  by  him  at  Weimar  was  a  version  of 
Goethe's  'Egmont',  made  in  1796.  Iffland  was 
starring  in  Weimar  and  wished  to  appear  as  Egmont. 
Goethe  was  just  then  somewhat  lukewarm  toward  the 
theater,  and  even  if  he  had  not  been,  it  was  by  no 
means  hidden  from  him  that  his  own  strength  lay  in 
the  poetic  rather  than  the  dramatic  sphere.  So  it  was 
arranged  that  Schiller,  as  a  man  of  experience,  should 
operate  upon  the  play  that  he  had  reviewed  so  candidly 
some  years  before.  His  procedure  was  *  consistent  but 
cruel ',  as  Goethe  afterward  phrased  it.  He  dropped 
the  role  of  Margaret   of  Parma   entirely,  rearranged 

*  For  an  excellent  discussion  of  Schiller's  more  important  adaptations 
the  reader  is  referred  to  A.  KOster,  **  Schiller  als  Dramaturg",  Berlin, 
1891. 


Adaptation  of  Egmont  439 

here  and  there  in  order  to  avoid  a  too  frequent  change 
of  scene,  and  made  a  multitude  of  little  changes  in  the 
interest  of  stage  effect.  As  to  the  propriety  of  these 
alterations  it  is  futile  to  argue  on  general  grounds, 
since  so  much  depends  on  the  point  of  view,  and  the 
point  of  view  has  changed.  To-day  people  who  go  to 
the  theater  to  see  *  Egmont '  prefer  to  see  the  play, 
for  better  or  worse,  as  Goethe  wrote  it.  Piety  toward 
the  author  counts  more  than  abstract  principles.  For 
a  while  Schiller's  version  of  '  Egmont '  had  a  certain 
vogue  in  the  German  theaters,  but  it  soon  gave  way  to 
an  increasing  preference  for  the  original.  Goethe 
himself  was  pleased  when  this  tendency  manifested 
itself. 

Similar  considerations  apply  to  the  version  of  Les- 
sing's  'Nathan  ',  which  was  made  in  1801.  Strangely 
enough,  as  it  seems  to  us  now,  Lessing's  masterpiece 
had  up  to  that  time  met  with  no  favor  on  the  German 
stage.  It  was  not  so  much  that  people  objected  to  its 
philosophic  drift  as  that  something  seemed  to  be  lack- 
ing in  its  dramatic  quality.  Very  naturally  Goethe 
and  Schiller,  who  were  strongly  in  sympathy  with 
Lessing's  tendency,  were  desirous  of  domesticating 
*  Nathan  '  on  the  Weimar  boards.  So  Schiller  under- 
took an  adaptation,  taking  the  task  very  seriously. 
Years  before,  while  following  up  the  theory  of  the 
drama  in  his  strict  and  strenuous  fashion,  he  had  con- 
vinced himself  that  *  Nathan  '  was  a  monstrosity ;  it 
was  neither  tragedy  nor  comedy  nor  tragi-comedy,  and 
he  was  opposed  to  a  mixture  of  types.  In  tragedy, 
so  he  had  reasoned  in  his  essay  upon  *  Naive  and 
Sentimental  Poetry',  raisonnement  is  out  of  place;  ia 


440       Unfinished  Plays  and  Adaptations 

comedy,  pathos.  Lessing  had  yielded  to  the  *  whim  ' 
of  mixing  the  two.  If,  therefore,  it  was  desired  to 
make  an  acceptable  stage-play  out  of  *  Nathan  '  it 
would  be  advisable  to  modify  it  in  the  direction  of 
tragedy  by  reducing  its  raisonnement^  or  else  to  make 
it  more  like  comedy  by  reducing  its  pathos.  In  other 
words,  theory  had  given  Schiller  a  point  of  view  which 
is  not  the  modern  point  of  view.  To-day  no  one, 
unless  it  were  a  pedant,  would  be  disposed  to  criticize 
Lessing,  because,  toward  the  end  of  his  days,  out  of 
the  fullness  of  his  heart  and  following  the  impulse  that 
was  in  him,  he  for  once  threw  his  own  theories  to  the 
winds  and  wrote  a  dramatic  masterpiece  of  its  own 
peculiar  kind.  The  very  fact  that  it  is  unique  is  for  us 
a  part  of  its  merit. 

But  now,  as  was  pointed  out  in  a  preceding  chapter, 
the  effect  of  Schiller's  occupation  with  the  drama  at 
Weimar  was  to  weaken  his  reverence  for  theory  and  to 
convince  him  of  the  importance  of  *  keeping  the  type- 
idea  flexible  in  one's  mind  '.  So  when  he  came  to 
adapt  *  Nathan  '  for  the  stage  he  proceeded  much  less 
radically  than  one  might  expect  from  his  previous 
utterances.  The  tendency  of  the  play  was  left  intact, 
but  many  changes  were  made  in  the  interest  of  brevity, 
simplicity  and  rapidity  of  movement.  To  these  no 
one  can  seriously  object,  since  Lessing's  text  is  too 
long  for  an  evening  in  the  theater,  as  the  matter  was 
regarded  in  those  pre-Wagnerian  days.  Not  so  readily 
to  be  approved  are  certain  other  changes  which  amount 
to  a  retouching  of  some  of  the  portraits  with  which 
Schiller  was  dissatisfied, — notably  that  of  the  Sultan 
Salad  in. 


Adaptation  of  Macbeth  441 

Of  much  greater  interest  than  either  of  these  adap- 
tations is  that  of  'Macbeth',  which  was  made  in 
January  and  February,  1800.  This  particular  tragedy 
of  Shakspere  had  always  been  a  favorite  with  Schiller, 
and  its  influence  is  discernible  in  some  of  his  plays, 
especially  in  *  Wallenstein '.  It  was  only  natural, 
therefore,  at  a  time  when  Goethe  and  Schiller  were 
reaching  out  in  every  direction  for  the  enrichment  of 
their  theatrical  repertory,  that  the  staging  of  '  Mac- 
beth '  should  appear  as  a  consummation  devoutly  to 
be  wished.  There  were  already  German  versions 
which  had  been  used  at  various  theaters,  but  they  were 
wretched  travesties  of  Shakspere.  In  setting  out  to 
make  a  new  and  better  one,  Schiller  took  as  the  basis 
of  his  operations  the  translations  of  Wieland  and  of 
Eschenburg,  following  now  the  one  and  now  the  other. 
When  he  was  half  through  with  his  labor  he  procured 
the  English  text  and  used  it  thereafter  as  a  corrective. 
He  added,  subtracted  and  rearranged  at  will,  and  con- 
verted Shakspere 's  prose  into  verse.  The  result  is 
a  decidedly  Schilleresque  'Macbeth',  the  merit  of 
which  has  been  debated  to  this  day.  The  Romanti- 
cists, with  A.  W.  Schlegel  at  their  head,  were  dis- 
gusted with  it  and  did  not  hide  their  emotions.  Others 
have  defended  it  through  thick  and  thin.  The  ques- 
tions involved  are  too  far-reaching  to  be  discussed  here, 
but  it  may  at  least  be  remarked  that  there  is  no  ground 
for  a  severely  unfavorable  judgment  of  Schiller's  work. 
It  is  in  no  sense  a  translation  and  is  not  to  be  judged 
as  a  literary  performance  at  all,  but  as  a  stage-play. 
As  such  it  served  its  purpose  very  well;  it  made 
Shakspere  acceptable  at  Weimar  in  the  only  way  then 


442        Unfinished  Plays  and  Adaptations 

possible  under  the  circumstances.  And  it  helped  bring 
Shakspere  into  favor  elsewhere.  The  Schillerized 
*  Macbeth  '  may  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  necessary 
transition -stage  between  the  gross  travesties  of  an 
earlier  time  and  the  more  faithful  presentations  that 
were  to  come. 

With  respect  to  *  Turandot '  a  few  words  must 
suffice.  This  again  grew  out  of  the  laudable  desire  of 
the  duumvirs  to  acclimate  in  Weimar  dramatic  produc- 
tions that  had  pleased  the  public  in  other  climes. 
Gozzi's  so-called  fiabe  belonged  to  this  class.  They 
had  had  a  great  though  short-lived  vogue  at  Venice,  and 
this  had  led  to  a  German  translation  in  prose  by  a  man 
named  Werthes.  What  Schiller  did  was  to  turn  the 
prose  of  Werthes  into  pentameters  of  the  style  that  he 
had  made  peculiarly  his  own.  He  seems  not  to  have 
looked  at  the  Italian  text  at  all,  and  indeed  it  could 
have  been  of  little  use  to  him.  As  one  would  expect, 
he  made  an  attempt  to  give  some  poetic  weight  to  the 
fantastic  trifle,  but  it  was  a  thankless  undertaking, 
albeit  good  Italian  critics  have  praised  his  *  Turandot ' 
as  far  superior  to  the  original.  The  comic-opera  sub- 
ject, for  such  it  really  is,  was  not  adapted  to  Schiller's 
vein.  His  *  Turandot '  is  distinctly  stiff  and  operose. 
It  had  a  short  run  at  two  or  three  theaters,  where,  as 
at  Weimar,  it  excited  a  small  interest  on  account  of  the 
riddles  and  the  Chinese  *  business',  and  then  it  was 
quietly  consigned  to  the  limbo  of  things  that  were. 

The  remaining  adaptations  made  by  Schiller  were 
from  the  French,  a  language  which  he  knew  better 
than  any  other  except  his  own.  The  Duke  of  Weimar, 
and  with  him  a  considerable  portion  of  the  Weimar 


Interest  in  the  French  Drama* 


443 


public,  had  retained  from  early  education  a  strong 
predilection  for  the  French  drama,  both  in  comedy  and 
in  the  haute  tragedie.  It  was  thus  a  cause  of  joy  in 
court  circles  when  it  became  known,  in  the  autumn  of 
1799,  that  Goethe  had  so  far  overcome  his  early  anti- 
Gallic  prejudices  as  to  have  undertaken  a  translation 
for  the  stage  of  Voltaire's  '  Mahomet '.  To  this  enter- 
prise, however,  he  was  moved  not  so  much  by  any 
change  of  heart,  or  by  poetic  sympathy,  as  by  a  desire 
to  improve  the  style  of  the  Weimar  actors, — to  teach 
them  ideality  and  self-abnegation.  With  this  purpose 
Schiller  was  in  hearty  accord,  as  can  be  seen  from  his 
verses  *  To  Goethe',  written  in  January,  1800,  in 
which  he  set  forth  his  dramatic  confession  of  faith. 
The  Frenchman,  he  declared  with  unction,  could  by 
no  means  serve  them  as  a  model;  there  must  be  no 
bringing  back  of  the  old  fetters.  The  Germans  had 
advanced  to  a  new  era,  and  demanded  now  a  faithful 
picture  of  nature.  Nevertheless  their  histrionic  art  was 
in  a  backward  condition,  lacking  in  ideality  and  distinc- 
tion. Wherefore  the  French  tragedy  was  to  be  wel- 
comed as  a  *  guide  to  the  better  *.  It  was  to  come 
*  like  a  departed  spirit  and  purify  the  desecrated  stage 
into  a  worthy  seat  of  the  ancient  Melpomene  ' . 

The  result  of  this  new  rapprochement  was  that 
Schiller  began  to  take  a  more  lively  interest  in  the 
French  drama,  and  out  of  this  interest  grew  presently 
his  translations  of  two  of  Picard's  comedies,  *  Mediocre 
et  Rampant'  and  *  Encore  des  Menechmes '.  In 
both  he  took  his  task  very  lightly.  Picard's  alexan- 
drines, in  *  Mediocre  et  Rampant*,  were  converted 
into  German  prose,  and  the  play  was  christened  *  The 


444       Untinished  Plays  and  Adaptations 

Parasite*.  In  the  case  of  the  other,  renamed  *The 
Nephew  as  Uncle  ',  the  original  was  in  prose  and 
Schiller  merely  made  a  free  translation.  These  enter- 
prises were  little  more  than  hackwork,  which  had  its 
suitable  reward  of  brief  popularity.  Of  an  entirely 
different  character  is  the  version  of  Racine's  *  Phedre  ', 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  finished  a  few  weeks 
before  Schiller's  death.  Here  we  have  for  the  first 
time  what  can  properly  be  called  a  poetic  translation. 
To  a  large  extent  Schiller's  version  is  a  line-for-line 
rendering  of  the  French  alexandrines  into  German 
pentameters, — a  thing  by  no  means  easy  to  do. 
*  Phedra '  is  by  far  the  best  specimen  we  have  of 
Schiller's  powers  as  a  translator. 


CHAPTER  XXII 
trbe  iDcrDfct  ot  iposteritis 

Alles  was  der  Dichter  geben  kann  ist  seine  Individualitat ; 
diese  musz  also  wert  sein,  vor  Welt  und  Nachwelt  aufgestellt  zu 
werden. — Review  of  Burger,  17 91. 

Rather  more  than  in  other  countries  it  is  the  fashion 
in  Germany  to  regard  literature  under  a  national  aspect, 
and  to  judge  of  writers  not  so  much  according  to  their 
power  of  titillating  a  fastidious  literary  taste  as  accord- 
ing to  the  degree  in  which  they  have  entered  into  and 
affected  the  intellectual  life  of  the  people  at  large. 
Looked  at  from  this  point  of  view,  Schiller  well 
deserves  the  name  of  a  national  poet;  indeed  it  would 
be  hard  to  find  another  modern  man  who  deserves  it 
better.  Critics  there  have  always  been  to  find  fault 
with  this  and  that,  yet  he  remains,  after  a  century,  the 
most  truly  popular  of  German  poets;  not  the  most 
admired  by  the  literary  class,  or  by  the  outside  world, 
but  the  most  beloved  in  his  own  country.  Most 
Germans  have  a  different  feeling  for  Schiller  from  that 
which  they  cherish  for  any  other  of  their  great  writers. 

For  this  his  idealized  personality  is  largely  responsi- 
ble. He  is  habitually  thought  of  as  an  exceptionally 
noble  and  lofty  character ;  as  a  man  more  singly  and 
more  strenuously  devoted  than   most   men  to   those 

445 


446  The  Verdict  of  Posterity 

starry  ideals  of  truth,  beauty  and  freedom,  to  which  in 
the  abstract  all  acknowledge  fealty.  His  memory  was 
early  invested  with  a  sort  of  halo,  as  of  secular  saint- 
hood, for  which,  when  one  soberly  reviews  the  facts  of 
his  career,  there  seems  at  first  but  little  warrant.  Many 
another  man  has  been  no  less  serious  in  his  philosophiz- 
ing, no  less  conscientious  in  his  artistic  performance. 
There  is  nothing  heroic  in  the  story  of  his  life,  unless 
It  were  his  battle  with  disease ;  and  this  might  have 
been  managed  more  wisely,  if  not  more  bravely.  And 
yet  the  halo  is  not  altogether  factitious.  Many  who 
knew  him  in  his  later  years  have  borne  witness  to  his 
spiritualized  expression  and  the  fine  dignity  of  his 
presence.  He  gave  the  impression  of  an  eminent 
personage  whose  *  *  soul  was  like  a  star  and  dwelt 
apart ' ' .  Withal  he  was  a  pattern  of  the  homely 
virtues ;  an  affectionate  husband  and  father  and  a  loyal 
friend.  There  was  no  dissonance  between  his  life  and 
his  poetry.  On  hearing  of  his  death,  the  sculptor 
Dannecker  wrote : 

The  godlike  man  stands  continually  before  my  eyes.  I  will 
make  him  life-like.  Schiller  must  live  in  sculpture  as  a  colossal 
form.  I  intend  an  apotheosis.  .  .  .  The  king  was  lately  in  my 
studio,  and  when  he  saw  Schiller  so  large  he  said  :  •  Zounds ! 
But  why  so  large  ? '  I  answered  :  ♦  Majesty,  Schiller  must  be 
thus  large  ;  the  Suabian  must  make  a  monument  to  the  Suabian.* 
Said  the  king :  ♦  You  must  have  been  a  good  friend  of  his.'  I 
answered :  '  Yes,  Majesty,  from  my  youth  up.  I  occupy  my- 
self with  him  daily,  working  at  the  colossal  bust.  It  costs 
trouble,  but  it  gives  me  joy,  because  the  colossal  image  will 
make  an  indescribable  impression.* 

But  it  was  not  only  his  friends  who  were  thus  affected 
by  his  personality.     Madame  de  Stael  said  of  him  in 


Madame  de  StaeFs  Estimate  447 

her  famous  book  on  Germany,  which  was  published  in 
1813: 

Schiller  was  as  admirable  for  his  virtues  as  for  his  talents. 
Conscience  was  his  muse.  .  .  .  He  loved  poetry,  the  dramatic 
art,  history,  literature,  for  their  own  sake.  Had  he  been  re- 
solved not  to  publish  his  works,  he  would  have  bestowed  the 
same  care  upon  them.  ...  In  his  youth  he  had  been  guilty  of 
some  vagaries  of  fancy,  but  with  the  strength  of  manhood  he 
acquired  that  exalted  purity  which  springs  from  great  thoughts. 
He  never  had  anything  to  do  with  the  vulgar  feelings.  He 
lived,  spoke  and  acted  as  if  bad  people  did  not  exist ;  and  when 
he  portrayed  them  in  his  works,  it  was  with  more  exaggeration 
and  less  depth  than  if  he  had  known  them.  The  bad  presented 
themselves  to  his  mind  as  an  obstacle,  as  a  physical  scourge. 

In  this  characterization,  truth  to  tell,  there  is  a  con- 
siderable element  of  pure  moonshine,  as  any  one  may 
convince  himself  who  will  read  through  Schiller's 
letters,  more  especially  those  written  during  the  life- 
time of  the  Horen.  He  had  in  him  quite  enough  of 
the  fighter  and  of  the  schemer,  and  it  came  out  in 
human  ways.  Moreover  he  wrote  constantly  for  im- 
mediate publication,  under  the  goad  of  strong  necessity; 
what  he  might  have  done  if  this  necessity  had  not 
existed,  no  man,  or  woman,  can  tell.  Still,  Madame 
de  Stael's  portrait  is  highly  interesting,  as  the  first  that 
went  out  to  the  world  at  large,  and  as  evidence  of  the 
impression  produced  by  Schiller  in  his  later  years  even 
upon  those  who  were  under  no  peculiar  temptation  to 
idealize  him. 

Much  more  influential  in  shaping  the  sentiment  of 
posterity  was  Goethe's  magnificent  '  Epilogue  *,  dating 
from  the  year  18 15.  In  this  poem  the  essential  linea- 
ments  of  Schiller's   character,   as   seen  through  the 


448  The  Verdict  of  Posterity 

soothing  but  not  yet  obscuring  vista  of  ten  years  by 
the  wisest  of  those  who  knew  him  well,  were  fixed  for 
all  time.  He  was  here  described  as  one  who  had 
'  mounted  to  the  highest  heights,  closely  akin  to  all 
that  we  esteem  * ;  and  posterity  was  besought  to  give 
him  that  which  life  had  denied.  Henceforth  it  was 
possible  only  for  purblind  partisanship  to  think  other- 
wise than  nobly  of  a  man  concerning  whom  a  Goethe 
could  say  such  words  as  these : 

Denn  er  war  unser.     Mag  das  stolze  Wort 
Den  lauten  Schmerz  gewaltig  iibertonen. 
Er  mochte  sich  bei  uns  im  sichem  Port, 
Nach  wildem  Sturm,  zum  Dauernden  gew5hnen. 
Indessen  schritt  sein  Geist  gewaltig  fort 
Ins  Ewige  des  Guten,  Wahren,  Schonen  ; 
Und  hinter  ihm,  in  wesenlosem  Scheine, 
Lag  was  uns  alle  bandigt,  das  Gemeine.^ 

Nevertheless  the  purblind  partisanship  was  already 
beginning  its  campaign,  though  less  against  Schiller's 
character  than  against  his  art ;  and  this  campaign  soon 
led  to  a  terrific  logomachy,  which  was  destined  to 
convulse  the  German  empire  of  the  air  for  something 
like  two  generations.  The  controversy  related  to  the 
comparative  merit  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  as  men  and 

1  The  meaning  of  the  famous  verses,  divested  perforce  of  much  of 
their  German  music,  may  be  expressed  thus  : 

For  he  was  ours.     So  let  the  note  of  pride 
Hush  into  silence  all  the  mourner's  ruth  ; 
In  our  safe  harbor  he  was  fain  to  bide 
And  build  for  aye,  after  the  storm  of  youth. 
We  saw  his  mighty  spirit  onward  stride 
To  eternal  realms  of  Beauty  and  of  Truth  ; 
While  far  behind  him  lay  phantasmally 
The  vulgar  things  that  fetter  you  and  me. 


G)ntroversy  over  Goethe  and  Schiller 


449 


as  poets.  In  general  the  Romantic  school  was  hostile 
to  Schiller,  partly  for  private  reasons  that  had  very 
little  to  do  with  critical  theories.  In  his  famous 
*  Lectures  on  Dramatic  Art ',  originally  delivered  at 
Vienna  in  1808  and  published  a  few  years  later,  A.  W. 
Schlegel  dealt  briefly  with  Schiller  at  the  end  of  the 
course.  What  he  said  was  not  unmixed  with  just 
appreciation,  but  the  lectures  set  a  bad  fashion  in 
German  criticism.  Modern  poetry  was  identified  with 
Romantic  poetry  and  Shakspere  was  held  up  as  the 
Romantic  poet.  Not  only  his  greatness,  but  his 
rubbish,  his  rodomantade,  his  quips  and  quibbles  and 
buffoonery,  were  treated  as  if  they  belonged  to  a  sacro- 
sanct canon  of  dramatic  art.  From  this  the  natural 
inference  was  that  to  be  like  Shakspere  was  to  be  great, 
and  that  no  other  kind  of  greatness  was  possible  for 
the  Romantic,  or  modern,  poet.  As  for  Schiller,  he 
was  treated  by  Schlegel  with  urbane  condescension  as 
a  gifted  playwright  who  had  tried  to  imitate  Shakspere 
and  met  with  but  limited  success.  The  early  plays 
were  dismissed  with  a  mere  cry  of  pain,  and  the  later 
ones  were  discussed  very  briefly  and  perfunctorily  with 
respect  to  purely  formal  matters. 

As  already  remarked,  the  lectures  of  Schlegel  were 
sufficiently  urbane  in  tone  and  gave  no  foretaste  of  that 
bitterness  with  which  he  subsequently  attacked  Schiller 
in  some  of  his  poems.  What  is  here  important  to 
observe  is  that  Schlegel,  and  the  other  Romanticists 
who  took  their  cue  from  him,  set  the  vogue  of  judging 
Goethe  and  Schiller  according  to  their  imagined 
resemblance  to  Shakspere.  Certain  catchwords  and 
phrases,   such  as  universality,  objectivity,   irony,   and 


450  The  Verdict  of  Posterity 

what  not,  were  imported  into  the  literature  of  discus- 
sion, and  these  concepts  were  used  as  absolute  criteria 
by  which  to  write  Goethe  up  and  Schiller  down.  This 
naturally  provoked  the  many  friends  of  Schiller,  and 
they  replied  by  assailing  Goethe.  His  'universality' 
was  decried  as  a  lamentable  weakness:  it  meant  lack 
of  character,  of  principle,  of  patriotism.  His  pleasing 
form  was  only  the  seductive  veil  of  immorality  and 
pococurantism.  And  so  the  controversy  raged,  becom- 
ing at  last,  in  some  cases,  mere  blind  fury.  One  who 
would  like  to  get  a  vivid  impression  of  the  state  of 
German  criticism  at  this  time,  and  of  the  extent  to 
which  partisanship  could  obfuscate  the  vision  of  an 
intelligent  and  well-meaning  man,  should  read  the 
third  volume  of  Wolfgang  Menzel's  'German  Litera- 
ture', published  in  1828.  Menzel's  treatment  of 
Goethe  is  one  long  diatribe  of  misrepresentation,  becom- 
ing at  times  a  mere  ululation  of  malignant  hatred. 
Schiller,  on  the  other  hand,  is  exalted  to  the  skies  as 
the  peerless  representative  of  all  that  is  noble  in  human 
nature  and  in  poetry. 

This  fierce  old  battle  of  pen  and  ink,  which  was 
really  a  disgrace  to  German  civilization,  is  still  capable 
of  affording,  for  the  passionate  fury  and  wrong-headed- 
ness  of  it,  a  modicum  of  amusement  to  the  retrospective 
scholar  of  to-day.  And  it  amused  Goethe,  who  as 
usual  found  the  sane  point  of  view.  Said  he  to  Ecker- 
mann,  one  day  in  the  year  1825  :  '  These  twenty  years 
the  public  has  been  contending  as  to  which  is  the  greater, 
Schiller  or  I ;  they  ought  rather  to  be  glad  that  they 
have  a  brace  of  such  fellows  to  quarrel  about.'  In  all 
his  talks  with  Eckermann  Goethe  remained  steadfastly 


Goethe^s  Loyalty  to  his  Friend  451 

faithful  to  the  memory  of  his  friend,  giving  no  comfort 
to  those  who  were  using  his  own  name  as  a  bludgeon 
wherewith  to  batter  the  prestige  of  Schiller.  *  Schiller  ' , 
said  he,  '  could  do  nothing  that  did  not  turn  out  greater 
than  the  best  work  of  these  moderns.  Yes,  even  when 
he  cut  his  finger-nails  he  was  greater  than  these  gentle- 
men. '  He  freely  criticized  this  and  that  in  particular 
plays,  observing  that  there  was  *  something  violent '  in 
Schiller's  methods ;  he  even  committed  himself  to  the 
dubious  conjecture  that  certain  weak  passages  might 
be  due  to  physical  exhaustion  or  to  the  unwholesome 
stimulation  of  flagging  energies.  But  the  ever  recurring 
burden  of  his  discourse  was — Er  war  ein  prdchtiger 
Mensch. 

The  death  of  Goethe,  in  1832,  brought  to  an  end 
conspicuously  the  epoch  of  the  Weimarian  poets. 
Indeed  it  had  ended  virtually  long  before,  but  it  was 
not  until  Goethe  too  had  become  a  memory  that  its 
significance  was  fully  realized.  The  Germans  now 
saw,  and  the  rest  of  the  world  saw  too,  that  they  had 
a  classical  literature  which  really  counted.  They 
began  to  speak  of  *  our  classics  ' ,  and  to  compare  and 
contrast  them  with  the  newest  literary  manifestations. 
Writers  of  every  kind, — philosophers,  literary  critics 
and  historians,  poets,  novelists,  journalists,  politicians 
and  agitators, — had  now  to  adjust  themselves  mentally 
to  Goethe  and  Schiller  and  what  they  stood  for,  or 
were  supposed  to  stand  for.  And  so  the  river  of  litera- 
ture, which  in  our  day  has  become  a  great  Amazon, 
commenced  flowing  in  a  small,  but  steady  and  ever 
widening  stream.  Hofifmeister's  monumental  biography 
of  Schiller,   in  five  volumes,   appeared  between    1838 


452  The  Verdict  of  Posterity 

and  1842,  and  in  the  ensuing  years  there  came  a  pro- 
cession of  less  thorough  biographers,  writing  more  for 
the  unlearned  public.  The  criticism  of  him  as  a  poet 
and  a  dramatist  was  still  subordinated,  in  a  large 
degree,  to  the  consideration  of  him  as  the  prophet  of 
ideas  which  were  to  be  examined  with  reference  to 
their  ethical  and  moral  value,  or  to  the  degree  of  their 
applicability  to  then  existing  conditions. 

The  period  now  under  consideration  is,  roughly 
speaking,  the  period  from  the  beginning  of  acute  politi- 
cal agitation,  about  1830,  to  the  realization  of  national 
unity  in  1871.  During  the  first  part  of  this  era 
academic  philosophy  was  still  largely  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Hegel,  but  the  reaction  had  set  in  and  was 
destined  to  grow  into  a  widespread  distrust  of  all 
speculative  philosophy.  Not  to  explain  and  justify  the 
existing  world  by  the  arachnean  method  of  spinning  a 
Weltanschauung  out  of  one's  own  interior,  but  to  make 
the  world  different, — was  the  new  watchword.  It  was 
widely  felt  that  Germans  had  speculated  and  theorized 
and  dreamed  too  much;  it  was  time  to  assert  their 
strength  in  practical  affairs.  Men's  minds  began  to 
be  engaged  with  questions  of  political  reform  and  social 
regeneration.  It  was  no  longer  the  ideal,  the  good, 
the  beautiful  and  the  true,  that  pressed  for  considera- 
tion, but  constitutional  government,  the  freedom  of  the 
press,  popular  representation  and,  above  all,  German 
unity.  But  chaos  seemed  to  reign  in  the  intellectual 
sphere.  Young  Germany,  so  called,  began  a  noisy 
agitation  which  had  no  definite  goal  in  view,  but  was 
characterized  by  a  fierce  hostility  to  existing  forms  in 
church    and    state, — to    princes,    aristocrats,    priests, 


The  Mid-century  Epoch  453 

Christian  marriage  and  conventional  morality.  And 
there  were  other  agitations,  doctrines,  theories  and 
tendencies  innumerable.  Germany  had  become,  to 
revive  a  comparison  then  much  in  vogue,  an  irresolute 
Hamlet,  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought. 
Talk,  talk,  everywhere,  and  nowhere  the  strong  hand 
of  constructive  statesmanship.  And  so  came  the 
abortive  revolution  of  1848,  with  its  ensuing  disgusts, 
until  finally  the  man  of  destiny  appeared  and  conducted 
affairs,  by  way  of  Sadowa  and  Sedan,  to  the  new 
German  Empire. 

Now  in  that  era  of  the  doctrinaires,  of  the  philo- 
sophical break-up  and  of  seething  political  passions,  it 
was  but  natural  that  those  who  thought  of  Schiller  at 
all  thought  not  so  much  of  the  dramatic  artist  as  of  the 
prophet  whose  sentiments  could  be  quoted  for  present 
edification  or  reproof.  The  men  of  the  middle  part  of 
the  century  judged  him  generally  from  the  partisan 
standpoint  of  their  own  political,  philosophical  and 
religious  prejudices.  This  is  true  not  only  of  the  for- 
gotten criticasters,  but  of  the  most  famous,  the  most 
widely  read  and  the  most  authoritative  literary  his- 
torians of  the  time,  such  as  Gervinus  and  Vilmar. 
And  in  the  domain  of  pure  dramatic  criticism,  or  what 
purported  to  be  such,  there  was  quite  too  much  of  that 
captious  dogmatism  which  had  come  down  from  the 
Romanticists  and  which  had  its  origin,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  the  habit  of  regarding  Shakspere,  not  as  the 
great  dramatist  of  a  nation  and  an  epoch,  but  as  the 
universal  modern  poet,  whose  methods  and  peculiarities 
must  be  canonical  for  everybody.^     Instead  of  looking 

1  The  disparagement  of  Schiller  on  account  of  his  unlikeness  to  Shak- 


454  The  Verdict  of  Posterity 

fairly  and  squarely  at  Schiller's  plays  and  endeavoring 
to  understand  and  interpret  them  as  the  expression  of 
the  life  of  a  past  epoch,  and  of  an  artistic  individuality 
which  had  its  own  right  to  be  and  to  grow  in  its  own 
way,  the  dogmatic  critics  treated  him,  in  many  cases, 
de  haut  en  baSy  as  if  they  knew  everything  better  than 
he.  Men  who  would  have  thought  it  a  little  absurd  to 
assail  Mont  Blanc  for  not  being  Chimborazo  did  not 
scruple  to  gird  at  Schiller  for  not  being  something  else 
than  that  which  his  nature  made  him.  And  so  it  was 
that  the  great  dramatic  poet  of  the  nation,  whose  plays 
were  daily  proving  their  vitality  in  scores  of  theaters 
and  were  giving  pleasure  to  millions  of  readers,  was 
treated  oftentimes  with  incredible  severity  by  pompous 
Rhadamanthine  critics  who  did  not  see  that  they  were 
thereby  making  themselves  and  their  critical  preten- 
sions slightly  ridiculous. 

Of  course  this  line  of  remark  is  not  meant  to  imply 
that  the  works  of  anybody  should  have  been  regarded 
as  above  criticism  because  they  were  popular  and  had 
become  classical.  What  is  intended  is  simply  to  char- 
acterize a  past  critical  epoch  which,  in  dealing  with 
imaginative  literature,  cared  a  little  too  much  for 
abstract  dogmas  and  theoretical  standpoints;  which, 
instead  of  trying  to  enter  humanly  into  the  spirit  of  an 
author  and  to  judge  him  according  to  the  nature  of  his 

spere  was  carried  to  almost  absurd  lengths  in  the  * '  Shakespeare-Studien" 
of  Otto  Ludwig.  One  of  Ludwig's  critiques,  written  about  1858,  begins 
thus :  "  Ich  kenne  keine  poetische,  namentlich  keine  dramatische  Ge- 
stalt,  die  in  ihrem  Entwurfe  so  zufallig,  so  krankhaft  individuell,  in 
ihrer  AusfQhrung  so  unwahr  ware,  als  Schiller's  Wallenstein;  keine, 
die  mit  ihren  eignen  Voraussetzungen  so  im  Streite  lage,  keine,  die  sich. 
molluskenhafter  der  WillkUr  des  Dichters  fUgte." 


Schiller  and  the  Doctrinaires  455 

intentions  and  his  success  in  carrying  them  out,  pre- 
ferred to  lay  him  on  a  bed  of  Procrustes  and  hack  at 
him  with  the  axe  of  philosophy.  Literature,  like 
language,  goes  on  its  way  with  very  little  tenderness 
for  theories  and  dogmas.  That  which  meets  the  needs 
of  human  nature  lives  and  after  a  while  its  *  faults  '  are 
forgotten;  or  mayhap  they  come  to  be  regarded  as 
merits,  and  the  rules  are  extended  to  include  the  new 
case.  Not  to  have  seen  this  quite  clearly  enough  was 
a  weakness  of  the  vigorous  and  rigorous  German  critics 
of  half  a  century  ago.  And  yet,  some  of  them  did  see 
it  dimly  now  and  then.  Reference  was  made  a  moment 
ago  to  Gervinus, — certainly  one  of  the  most  learned, 
thoughtful  and  generally  meritorious  of  German  literary 
historians, — and  it  was  implied  that  he  too  was  affected 
by  the  bias  of  his  age.  It  is  thus  a  pleasure  to  quote 
a  passage  from  him  which  shows  him  in  a  different 
Hght.  It  is  from  the  fifth  volume  of  his  '  National- 
Litteratur  der  Deutschen  ',  published  in  1842: 

If  one  insists  on  condemning  '  Wallenstein '  as  a  whole  because 
one  must  reject  the  episode  (of  Max  and  Thekla),  then  one  blinds 
oneself  deliberately  to  great  merits  on  account  of  small  faults. 
The  historical  critic  feels  clearly  here  the  disadvantage  in  which 
a  living  or  recently  deceased  writer  is  placed,  m  comparison 
with  an  earlier  one  whose  entire  mdividuality  has  receded  mto 
the  distance  and  is  beyond  the  strife  of  the  passions.  Soon  after 
Shakspere's  death  there  was  the  same  quarrel  about  him  that 
we  are  having  now  about  Schiller.  To-day  that  which  was  im- 
puted to  him  as  vice  is  so  interblended  with  his  virtues  that  it  is 
regarded  as  trivial  to  waste  a  serious  word  upon  it.  So  it  may 
be  one  day  with  our  poets  ;  and  then  people  will  look  at  the 
faults  in  Schiller's  compositions  from  other  points  of  view.  We 
shall  then  manage  to  get  along  with  what  was  done  and  accepted 
long  ago,  and  content  ourselves  with  explaining   it ;    whereas 


456  The  Verdict  of  Posterity 

now,  at  the  beginning  of  its  course,  though  we  cannot  unmake 
it,  we  think  perhaps  to  prevent  its  acceptance  and  deprive  it  of 
immortality  by  rejecting  it  unexplained. 

Here  is  certainly  a  highly  interesting  modern  case 
of  the  fulfillment  of  prophecy. 

Another  phase  of  the  Schiller-question  which  was 
much  discussed  in  the  middle  portion  of  the  nineteenth 
century  was  his  aesthetic  ideaHsm.  While  his  plays 
carry  one  into  the  rushing  currents  of  life,  and  while 
his  ballads  are  poems  of  action,  it  was  possible  to 
extract  from  his  *  Letters  on  ^Esthetic  Education  '  and 
from  some  of  his  poems,  notably  *  The  Ideal  and 
Life ',  what  seemed  to  be  a  message  of  aesthetic 
quietism ;  a  message  which  appeared  to  say  that  the 
attainment  of  inward  peace,  freedom  and  harmony  was 
the  highest  goal  of  human  effort.  Naturally  enough 
the  individualism  and  aestheticism  of  the  Weimarian 
poets  were  not  welcome  doctrine  to  an  excited  genera- 
tion that  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  an  immense  work  to 
be  done  for  the  fatherland.  The  ever  increasing 
pressure  of  social  emotions  made  it  seem  a  selfish  and 
unmanly  thing  to  be  so  concerned  about  one's  own 
spiritual  equipoise.  This  feeling  finds  frequent  expres- 
sion in  the  literature  of  the  time;  and  so  much  was  it 
harped  on,  and  so  feebly  were  the  countervailing  con- 
siderations presented,  that  many  people,  both  in 
Germany  and  outside  of  it,  got  into  their  heads  a 
radically  wrong  conception  of  the  Weimarian  Dioscuri ; 
a  conception  which  quite  forgot  that  both  of  them,  all 
their  lives  long,  were  very  strenuous  workers,  strongly 
possessed  by  the  social  sentiment.  And  even  those 
who  were  too  wise  to  be  thus  completely  misled  as  to 


Partisan  Misconceptions  457 

the  significance  and  the  value  of  the  Weimarian  legacy 
could  not  help  feeling  that  for  the  present,  at  least,  it 
were  better  regarded  as  a  dead  issue.  One  can  under- 
stand the  sentiment  with  which  Gervinus  closed  his 
great  history  of  the  national  literature :  *  The  rival  con- 
test of  the  arts  is  finished.  Now  we  should  set  before 
us  the  other  mark,  which  no  archer  among  us  has  yet 
hit,  and  see  if  peradventure  Apollo  will  grant  us  here 
too  the  renown  that  he  did  not  refuse  us  there. ' 

But  while  the  critics  and  doctrinaires  were  contend- 
ing thus  variously  about  the  merits  of  Schiller,  his 
name  endeared  itself  more  and  more  to  the  many  who 
were  chafing  under  the  regime  of  princely  absolutism 
and  were  longing  for  a  freer  Germany.  They  idealized 
him  as  the  poet  of  liberty, — chiefly,  it  would  seem,  on 
account  of  *  William  Tell',  or,  among  radical  and 
boisterous  youth,  on  account  of  '  The  Robbers  ' ;  for 
the  *  freedom  '  of  his  poems  is  a  metaphysical  rather 
than  a  political  concept.  In  the  year  1844  Freiligrath 
committed  himself  definitively  to  the  cause  of  *  the 
people  ',  as  he  understood  it,  which  proved  to  be  the 
cause  of  the  Red  RepubHcans.  In  announcing  his 
conversion  he  wrote  a  poem  called  *  Good  Morning  ', 
the  last  stanza  of  which,  done  into  rough  English 
rime,  runs  thus: 

Good  morning  then  !     Behold  a  freeman  here, 
Walking  henceforward  in  the  people's  ways  ; 
For  with  the  people  is  the  poet's  sphere, — 
'Tis  thus  I  read  my  Schiller  nowadays.' 
*  Guten  Morgen  denn  !     Frei  werd'  ich  stehen 
Ftir  das  Volk  und  mit  ihm  in  der  Zeit ; 
Mit  dem  Volke  soil  der  Dichter  gehen, — 
So  les'  ich  meinen  Schiller  heut. 


458  The  Verdict  of  Posterity 

But  he  read  him  quite  wrongly.  For  a  much  saner 
view  of  this  question  one  should  go  back  to  honest 
Eckermann,  who  reports  Goethe  as  saying  to  him  in 
1824:  'Schiller,  who,  between  ourselves,  was  much 
more  of  an  aristocrat  than  I,  has  the  remarkable  fortune 
to  count  as  a  particular  friend  of  the  people.  *  This  is 
exactly  right.  Neither  man  had  in  him  much  of  the 
stuff  that  tribunes  of  the  people  are  made  of,  but 
Schiller  had  less  of  it  than  Goethe.  His  whole  temper 
was  that  of  an  aristocrat.  Had  he  lived  in  the  forties 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  we  may  be  very  sure  that  he 
would  have  scented  a  return  of  the  French  Terror,  and 
would  have  spoken,  if  at  all,  as  an  arch-conservative. 

And  really  there  is  but  cold  comfort  in  '  William 
Tell  '  for  those  who,  in  the  revolutionary  epoch,  were 
clamoring  against  princes  as  such.  The  play  is  in  no 
sense  anti-monarchical,  nor  is  it  either  German  or 
un-German,  but  simply  human.  As  a  curious  illustra- 
tion of  the  unreason  that  men  could  once  be  guilty  of 
through  their  habit  of  regarding  Schiller  as  a  political 
poet,  it  is  worth  while  to  quote  a  passage  from  Vilmar, 
whose  history  of  German  literature  enjoyed  great  popu- 
larity half  a  century  ago.  Speaking  of  '  William  Tell  *, 
Vilmar  has  this  to  say: 

For  the  rest  it  is  remarkable  that  Schiller's  contemporaries 
and  a  large  part  of  posterity  looked  upon  *  Tell  *  as  a  peculiarly 
German  play,  and  that  too  in  respect  of  its  subject-matter.  They 
conceived  it  as  a  glorification  of  German  deeds  and  held  it  up  to 
admiration  as  a  sort  of  symbol  of  German  sentiment,  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  French  policy  of  subjugation  in  1 806-1 81 3  ;  the  fact 
being  that  Tell's  deed,  as  it  appears  in  the  saga  and  in  Schiller's 
drama,  represents  and  glorifies  the  unfortunate  and  in  part 
criminal  detachment  of  Switzerland  from  the  German  Empire. 


Perverse  View  of  William  Tell  459 

Napoleon  was  in  those  days  the  only  one  who  saw  this  and  ex- 
pressed his  amazement  that  Germans  could  thus  praise  such  a 
thoroughly  anti-German  play  as  a  drama  glorifying  the  German 
fatherland. 

It  is  sufficient  to  remark,  if  the  matter  were  of  any 
importance,  that  the  Swiss  revolution,  as  portrayed  by 
Schiller,  is  not  directed  against  the  Empire,  but  against 
the  brutes  sent  out  by  the  Hapsburg  dynasty  in  pur- 
suance of  a  policy  of  dynastic  aggrandizement.  In 
numerous  passages  it  is  brought  out  that  the  very  thing 
the  conspirators  are  concerned  about  is  to  preserve 
their  ancient  Reichsunmittelbarkeit.  All  that  they 
wish  is  to  get  back  and  perpetuate  the  liberties  they 
have  until  lately  enjoyed  under  the  Empire.  *  Free- 
dom '  nowhere  means  '  independence  ',  and  there  is  no 
vista  of  independence  at  the  end  of  the  play. 

The  year  1859  was  marked  by  a  prodigious  ebullition 
of  Schiller  enthusiasm.  While  the  hundredth  birthday 
of  Goethe  had  passed,  ten  years  before,  with  but  little 
notice,  that  of  Schiller  was  made  the  occasion  of  a 
demonstration  the  like  of  which  the  modern  world  has 
hardly  seen  made  in  honor  of  any  other  poet  whatso- 
ever. In  every  part  of  Germany,  and  not  in  Germany 
only  but  in  Austria,  Switzerland,  England  and  the 
New  World,  the  memory  of  Schiller  was  honored  in 
speech  and  song,  in  the  unveiling  of  monuments,  and 
in  commemorative  writings  large  and  small.  It  was 
as  if  the  entire  German-speaking  world,  still  dreaming 
the  lately  baffled  dream  of  national  unity,  had  turned 
to  him  as  the  noblest  of  the  spiritual  ties  that  bind 
Germans  together.  In  the  mass  of  literature  dating 
from   that   time    of  flood-tide    in    the    veneration    of 


46o  The  Verdict  di  Posterity 

ScluTler,  one  finds  a  good  deal  that  is  interesting  in  its 
own  way,  for  one  reason  or  another,  but  not  very  much 
that  is  highly  valuable  for  illuminative  criticism  of 
Schiller.  The  best  of  the  biographies  are  those  of 
Palleske  and  Scherr;  of  the  minor  tributes  the  famous 
address  of  Jacob  Grimm  in  the  Berlin  Academy.  The 
spirit  of  the  time  was  not  favorable  to  a  calm,  objective 
view,  but  it  is  in  itself  a  fact  of  immense  significance 
that  a  great  and  critical,  doctrine-ridden  and  passion- 
distracted  people  should  have  united  in  honoring  a  poet 
as  Schiller  was  honored  by  the  Germans  in  the  year 

1859- 

A  new  epoch  may  be  dated  from  about  1871, — ^the 
epoch  of  the  historical  critics  and  philologers.  With 
the  realization  of  national  unity  the  vista  of  the  past 
rapidly  cleared  up  and  new  points  of  view  were  gained. 
It  was  as  if  a  height  had  been  won  from  which  it  was 
possible  to  see  over  the  dust  and  smoke  of  the  past 
three  decades.  The  pride  of  the  new-born  nation  now 
looked  back  with  quickened  interest  to  the  great  writers 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  but  with  the  feeling  that 
they  had  done  enough  for  the  glory  of  the  fatherland 
in  simply  being  great  writers.  It  was  time  to  see  them 
as  they  were,  without  writing  them  up  or  down, 
according  to  their  supposed  attitude  toward  questions 
which  were  not  their  questions.  It  was  in  1874  that 
Herman  Grimm  remarked,  in  a  lecture  at  Berlin,  that 
henceforth  there  was  to  be  a  science  called  Goethe. 
All  the  world  knows  how  the  prediction  has  been  ful- 
filled. During  the  last  two  decades  the  science  called 
Goethe  has  marched  bravely  on,  enlisting  a  small  army 
of  workers,  creating  avast  jungle  of  literature, — se/va 


Epoch  of  the  Philologers  461 

selvaggia  ed  aspra  e  forte, — and  making  friends  and 
enemies.  And  the  science  called  Schiller  is  like  unto 
it,  only  not  quite  so  big. 

To  attempt  any  sort  of  review  or  conspectus  of  all 
this  Alexandrian  activity  would  be,  for  the  purposes  of 
this  book,  a  futile  undertaking;  it  would  lead  off  into  an 
interminable  and  dry  bibliography,  which  in  the  end 
would  convey  little  instruction  as  to  Schiller's  real  popu- 
larity. It  would  show  that  he  is  very  extensively  studied 
and  commented  on  by  the  academic  class,  w^hich  in  Ger- 
many constitutes  by  itself  an  enormous  public.  It  would 
also  show  that  good  judges,  of  apparently  equal  com- 
petence, still  think  very  differently  of  the  general  merit 
of  his  art  and  are  very  differently  affected  by  particu- 
lar works.  This  is  only  to  reiterate  the  familiar  truth 
that  literary  criticism  has  not  become,  does  not  tend 
to  become,  an  exact  science.  The  feeling  one  has  for 
poetry,  or  the  effect  produced  upon  one  by  a  particular 
artistic  individuality,  is  the  result  of  a  hundred  subtle 
influences  that  combine  to  give  each  one  of  us  his 
private  form  and  range  of  susceptibility;  and  this  sus- 
ceptibility itself  varies  with  the  Zeitgeist  and  with  the 
age  and  nerve-state  of  the  individual.  The  mere 
craving  for  novelty  makes  itself  felt ;  so  that  that  which 
once  gave  pleasure  gives  it  no  longer,  or  gives  it  in  a 
lower  degree.  There  is  disputing  about  tastes,  but 
there  is  no  settling  of  the  dispute.  For  A  to  give 
logical  reasons  why  B  should  admire  that  which,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  B  does  not  admire,  or  vice  versa,  is 
always  a  tempting,  and  in  the  long  run  a  useful, 
form  of  literary  exertion;  only  one  must  not  expect  B 
to  be  convinced  or  to  mend  his  ways  immediately. 


462  The  Verdict  of  Posterity 

Beyond  a  doubt  there  have  been  strong  influences 
at  work  in  Germany,  during  the  past  two  decades, 
which  are  unfavorable  to  Schiller's  prestige.  Now  and 
then  some  cocksure  champion  of  some  nova  fede 
announces  that  the  day  of  poetic  idealism  is  past. 
There  have  always  been  such  voices,  and  a  few  years 
ago  they  were  perhaps  a  little  more  numerous  and  more 
shrill  than  usual.  Of  late,  however,  they  have  seemed 
to  grow  fainter,  and  there  are  already  signs  of  the 
idealistic  reaction  that  is  sure  to  come.  Meanwhile 
the  day  of  Schiller  does  not  pass  and  is  not  likely  to 
pass.  The  isms  come  and  go,  but  his  plays  retain 
their  popularity,  because  they  appeal  to  sentiments 
that  are  deeply  rooted  in  the  affections  of  an  immense 
portion  of  the  German  people  who  care  but  little  for 
the  doctrines  of  the  doctrinaire.  And  so  it  will  con- 
tinue to  be.  To  talk  of  returning  to  Schiller,  or  to  hold 
up  his  style  and  technique  as  models  for  imitation,  is 
foolish.  Of  such  imitation,  which  could  lead  to  noth- 
ing but  the  ossification  of  the  German  drama,  there  has 
been  quite  enough  in  the  past.  To  imitate  his  spirit  is 
to  *  keep  the  type-idea  flexible  in  one's  mind  '  and  reach 
out  continually  after  that  which  is  new,  elevating  and 
adapted  to  the  present  need.  This  is  the  best  form  of 
respect  to  his  memory. 

Unquestionably  Schiller  lacked  the  supreme  qualities 
that  go  to  the  making  of  a  great  world-poet.  With  all 
his  cosmopolitanism  he  was  a  German  of  the  Germans. 
For  them  his  work  has  a  meaning  and  an  importance 
which  it  cannot  have  for  others,  because  he  is  the 
organ-voice  of  their  ethnic  instincts  and  idealisms. 
Think  of  a  sentiment  that  Germans  love,  and  you  shall 


Gjnclusion  463 

find  it,  if  you  search,  expressed  in  sonorous  verse  in 
some  poem  or  play  of  Schiller.  The  schools  and  the 
theaters  keep  his  name  steadily  before  the  great  public, 
while  the  intellectual  classes,  as  Gervinus  foresaw,  are 
coming  to  dwell  less  on  the  great  qualities  that  he 
lacked  than  on  the  great  qualities  that  he  possessed. 
As  to  the  present  attitude  of  sober  German  thought, 
nothing  could  possibly  be  more  illuminative  than  the 
following  words  of  Otto  Brahm : 

As  a  student  I  was  a  Schiller-hater.  I  make  this  preliminary- 
confession  not  because  I  attach  personal  importance  to  it,  but 
because,  on  the  contrary,  I  think  I  see  in  my  attitude  one  that  is 
typical  for  our  time.  Every  one  of  us,  it  seems  to  me,  travels 
this  road  :  After  a  period  of  early  veneration,  which  is  awakened 
in  us  by  tradition  and  by  the  earliest  literary  impressions  of 
youth,  there  comes,  as  a  reaction  against  an  uncritical  overesti- 
mate, and  under  the  influence  of  changed  ideals  of  art,  a  defec- 
tion from  Schiller,  which  parades  itself  in  a  one-sided  and  un- 
historical  emphasis  of  his  weak  points.  Then  gradually  this 
negative  attitude  corrects  itself  to  a  positive  one,  and  we  recog- 
nize the  folly  of  that  young-and-verdant  bumptiousness  which 
would  think  of  consigning  the  greatest  of  German  dramatists  to 
the  realms  of  the  dead.  And  now  at  last,  after  it  has  passed 
through  doubt,  our  enthusiasm  is  imperishable  ;  with  clear  eye 
we  look  up  to  the  greatness  of  the  man,  and  to  the  splendid 
model  for  all  intellectual  work  which  is  exhibited  in  that  life  of 
passionate  striving  for  the  ideal. 


THE  END 


APPENDIX 

B  Survey  ot  Scbiller  Xiterature 

The  mass  of  literature  pertaining  to  Schiller  has  now  grown 
so  great  that  an  exhaustive  bibliography  would  fill  a  good- 
sized  volume.  All  that  can  be  attempted  here  is  a  selection  of 
the  more  important  works.  The  fullest  bibliography  thus  far 
is  that  contained  in  the  fifth  volume  of  Goedeke's  Grundrisz 
zur  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Dichtung,  2nd  edition,  Dresden, 
1893.  Annual  reviews  of  Schiller  literature  appear  in  the 
Jahresberichte  fiir  neuere  deutsche  Litteraturgeschichte  and 
in  the  Berichte  des  Freien  Deutschen  Hochstiftes.  Valuable 
especially  for  its  English  titles  is  the  bibliography  compiled 
by  John  P.  Anderson  for  Nevinson's  Life  of  Schiller,  London, 
1889. 

EDITIONS 

During  the  lifetime  of  Schiller  his  writings  were  printed  in 
different  forms  by  different  publishers,  and  owing  to  the  ab- 
sence of  copyright  unauthorized  reprints  were  numerous.  He 
himself  undertook  no  complete  and  final  redaction  of  all  his 
works,  though  in  his  later  years  he  revised  and  arranged  a 
selection  of  his  poems.  '  Don  Carlos  '  and  some  of  the  prose 
writings  also  underwent  revision  at  the  hands  of  their  author. 

The  first  edition  calling  itself  complete  was  that  of  Korner, 
which  was  published  in  1812-15,  in  twelve  volumes,  by  Cotta 
of  Stuttgart.  Korner  divided  the  poems  into  three  periods, 
— a  division  which  has  since  been  extensively  copied.  Kor- 
ner's  edition  became  the  basis  of  the  later  Cotta  editions 

465 


466  Appendix 

(down  to  1868),  which  were  reprinted  in  various  forms  and 
degrees  of  completeness,  but  without  important  changes  or 
additions.  With  the  expiration  of  Cotta's  monopoly  and  the 
opening  of  the  philological  era,  the  works  of  Schiller  began  to 
be  deemed  worthy  of  the  same  scrupulous  editorial  care  that  had 
long  been  bestowed  on  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics.  The 
mid-century  researches  of  Hoffmeister  and  others,  particularly 
Hoffmeister's  Supplemente  zu  Schillers  Werken,  1 840-1,  had 
brought  to  light  much  new  material  not  usually  printed  with 
the  works  of  Schiller,  and  the  received  text,  even  of  the  more 
important  works,  was  known  to  be  more  or  less  faulty  and 
uncertain.  To  meet  the  new  demand  a  historico-critical 
edition  was  undertaken  by  Goedeke,  with  the  assistance  of 
several  sub-editors.  The  result  was  Schillers  Sammtliche 
Schriften,  Historisch-kritische  Ausgabe,  15  vols.,  Cotta, 
Stuttgart,  1868-76.  This  edition  aimed  at  completeness, 
arranged  the  works  chronologically  and  went  deeply  into  the 
matter  of  variant  readings.  It  is  still  indispensable  to  the 
scholar,  though  not  free  from  pedantries. 

Contemporaneous  with  this  work  of  critical  scholarship  was 
the  cheaper  and  more  popular  edition  of  Boxberger  and  Malt- 
zahn,  published  by  Hempel  in  Berlin — Schillers  Werke,  nach 
den  vorziiglichsten  Quellen  revidierte  Ausgabe,  16  parts  in  6 
vols.,  1868-74, — which,  though  unsightly,  is  valuable  for 
its  introductions  and  notes.  In  more  recent  years  several 
good  editions  have  appeared,  the  most  noteworthy  being 
(i)  that  of  Boxberger  and  Birlinger,  published  as  a  part  of 
Kurschner's  Deutsche  National-Litteratur,  12  vols.,  Stuttgart, 
1882-91;  (2)  that  of  L.  Bellermann,  Kritisch  durchgesehene 
und  erlauterte  Ausgabe,  14  vols.,  Leipzig,  1895  ff.,  and  (3) 
the  latest  of  the  critical  Cotta  editions,  completed  in  16  vols, 
in  1894. 

The  dramatic  fragments  have  been  twice  edited  by  Kett- 
ner,  Schillers  Dramatischer  Nachlasz  nach  den  Handschriften 


A  Survey  of  Schiller  Literature  467 

herausgegeben,  Weimar,  1895,  ^"^  Schillers  Dramatische 
Entwiirfe  und  Fragmente  aus  dem  Nachlasz  zusammengestellt, 
Stuttgart,  1899.  The  Xenia  have  recently  been  edited  by 
Schmidt  and  Suphan,  Xenien  1796,  nach  den  Handschriften 
des  Goethe-Schiller  Archivs  herausgegeben,  Weimar,  1893. 

As  is  well  known  the  later  plays  of  Schiller,  to  a  certain 
extent  also  some  of  his  prose  writings,  are  familiar  school 
classics  wherever  German  is  studied.  The  school  editions, 
many  of  them  meritorious  works  of  scholarship,  are  very 
numerous.  They  are  not  mentioned  here  because  a  mere  list 
of  names  and  dates  would  be  of  no  use,  while  a  selection  with 
discriminative  or  critical  comment  would  be  a  difficult  and 
invidious  task  to  which  the  compiler  of  this  survey  has  no 
inclination.  Any  of  the  scholarly  editions  published  in  re- 
cent years,  in  Germany,  the  United  States  or  England,  will 
usually  be  found  to  contain  a  sufficient  bibliography  of  the 
particular  work  under  consideration. 


LETTERS    AND    MEMOIRS 

It  was  the  opinion  of  Goethe  that  Schiller's  style  was  at  its 
best  in  his  letters  (see  Eckermann's  Gesprache,  14.  April, 
1824).  Letters  of  Schiller,  including  some  forged  ones  to 
Karl  Moser,  began  to  get  into  print  in  the  early  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  as  interest  increased  the  publications 
became  exceedingly  numerous  (see  the  extensive  bibliography 
in  Goedeke's  Grundrisz,  V.  98  ff.).  So  far  as  the  authentic 
letters  of  Schiller  himself  are  concerned,  these  separate  pub- 
lications have  now  been  superseded  by  the  admirable  work  of 
F.  Jonas,  Schillers  Briefe,  Kritische  Gesamtausgabe,  7  vols., 
Stuttgart,  1892  ff.  It  only  remains,  therefore,  to  make  note 
of  the  more  important  publications  that  contain  correspond- 
ence, or  reminiscences  having  a  biographical  value.  They 
are  as  follows : 


468  Appendix 

Briefwechsel  zwischen  Schiller  und  Goethe,  mit  einer  Einlei- 
tung  von  F.  Muncker,  Stuttgart,  1893.  The  correspondence  is 
also  to  be  had,  edited  by  Vollmer,  in  Cotta's  Bibliothek  der  Welt- 
litteratur.     It  was  first  published  in  1828-9  in  6  vols. 

Briefwechsel  zwischen  Schiller  und  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt, 
dritte  vermehrte  Ausgabe  mit  Anmerkungen  von  A.  Leitzmann, 
Stuttgart,  1900.  First  published  in  1830,  with  a  Vorerinnerung 
by  Von  Humboldt. 

Schillers  Briefwechsel  mit  KQrner,  herausgegeben  von  K.  Goe- 
deke,  Leipzig,  1 874  ;  also  a  later  edition  by  L.  Geiger,  Stuttgart, 
1893.  The  correspondence  was  first  published  in  1847  a^d  soon 
after  translated  into  English  by  Simpson,  3  vols.,  London,  1849. 

Schiller  und  Lotte,  dritte,  den  ganzen  Briefwechsel  umfassende 
Ausgabe,  von  W.  Fielitz,  Stuttgart,  1879;  later  edition,  also  by 
Fielitz,  1893.     First  published  in  1856. 

Karl  Augusts  erstes  Ankniipfen  mit  Schiller,  Stuttgart,  1857, 
edited  by  Schiller's  daughter,  Emilie  von  Gleichen. 

Schillers  Beziehungen  zu  Eltern,  Geschwistern  und  der  Fami- 
lie  von  Wolzogen,  herausgegeben  von  A.  von  Wolzogen,  Stutt- 
gart, 1859. 

Charlotte  von  Schiller  und  ihre  Freunde,  herausgegeben  von 
L.  Urlichs,  3  vols.,  Stuttgart,  1860-5. 

Briefwechsel  zwischen  Schiller  und  Iffland,  herausgegeben  von 
F.  Dingelstedt,  Stuttgart,  1863. 

Briefwechsel  zwischen  Schiller  und  seiner  Schwester  Christo- 
phine,  herausgegeben  von  W.  von  Maltzahn,  Leipzig,  1875. 

Schillers  Briefwechsel  mit  dem  Herzog  von  Augustenburg, 
herausgegeben  von  Max  Miiller,  Berlin,  1875. 

Geschaftsbriefe  Schillers,  gesammelt,  erlautert  und  herausge- 
geben von  K.  Goedeke,  Leipzig,  1875. 

Briefwechsel  zwischen  Schiller  und  Cotta,  herausgegeben  von 
W.  Vollmer,  Stuttgart,  1876. 

To  these  may  be  added — here  better  than  elsewhere  : 

Charlotte  von  Kalb  und  ihre  Beziehungen  zu  Goethe  und 
Schiller,  von  E,  Kopke,  Berlin,  1843,  and  The  Diary,  Reminis- 
cences and  Correspondence  of  Henry  Crabbe  Robinson,  edited 
by  Th.  Seidler,  London,  1869. 


A  Survey  of  Schiller  Literature  469 


BIOGRAPHY 

The  first  account  of  Schiller  by  a  conscientious  and  com- 
petent writer  was  that  by  Korner,  which  accompanied  his 
edition  of  1812-15.     This,  however,  was  a  mere  sketch. 

In  1825  Carlyle  published  his  Life  of  Schiller  at  London, 
and  a  few  years  later  the  book  was  translated  into  German 
and  supplied  with  an  introduction  by  Goethe.  It  was  based 
on  very  imperfect  information,  but  was  an  inspiring  work  of 
genius  nevertheless.  It  is  now  more  valuable  as  a  Carlyle 
document  than  as  a  Schiller-document. 

In  1830  Karoline  von  Wolzogen,  Schiller's  sister-in-law, 
published  her  memoir  of  the  poet,  which  is  now  to  be  had  in 
Cotta's  Bibliothek  der  Weltlitteratur.  It  contained  a  large 
number  of  authentic  letters  and  was  based  upon  an  intimate 
personal  acquaintance  dating  from  the  year  1787.  For  the 
earlier  years  data  were  furnished  by  friends  and  relatives. 
The  little  book  has  many  excellencies,  but  the  portrait  of 
Schiller,  as  it  came  from  the  hands  of  the  talented  but  aging 
Baroness,  is  a  shade  too  idealistic  and  sentimental.  Of  his 
virile  youth  one  gets  hardly  an  inkling. 

The  year  1836  brought  a  valuable  contribution  to  the 
knowledge  of  Schiller's  youth  in  Schillers  Flucht  von  Stutt- 
gart, by  Andreas  Streicher. 

From  this  time  on  the  biographies  are  numerous.  A  medi- 
ocre one  by  Doering,  first  published  in  1832,  was  often 
reprinted  in  subsequent  years.  Between  1838  and  1842 
appeared  Schillers  Leben,  Geistesentwickelung  und  Werke 
im  Zusammenhang,  von  Karl  Hoffmeister.  This  monumental 
work  of  scholarship,  in  five  volumes,  has  been  indispensable 
to  later  biographers,  however  they  might  differ  with  Hoff- 
meister in  matters  of  critical  estimate.  Hoffmeister' s  learned 
work  was  made  the  basis  of  a  more  popular  biography  by  H, 
Viehoff,  which  appeared  first  in  1846.     A  new  and  revised 


47©  Appendix 

edition  was  published  in  1875.  Of  the  shorter  and  more 
popular  biographies  which  appeared  down  to  1859,  it  may 
suffice  to  mention  those  by  G.  Schwab  (1840)  and  J.  W. 
Schafer  (1853).  The  sketch  by  Bulwer,  which  accompanied 
his  translation  of  Schiller's  poems,  London,  1844,  was  based 
mainly  on  Hoffmeister  and  Schwab. 

The  great  Schiller- festival  of  1859  called  forth  a  mass  of 
literature  of  which  the  titles  fill  ten  octavo  pages  in  Goedeke's 
Grundrisz.  Of  the  longer  biographies  dating  from  this  period 
the  most  important  are  that  by  J.  Scherr,  Schiller  und  seine 
Zeit,  Leipzig,  1859  (English  translation  by  Elizabeth  Mac- 
Lellan,  Philadelphia,  1881),  and  that  by  E.  Palleske,  Schil- 
lers  Leben  und  Werke,  Berlin,  1858-9.  Palleske's  work,  of 
which  an  English  translation  by  Lady  Wallace  appeared  in 
London  in  i860,  soon  attained  a  remarkable  popularity,  which 
it  still  enjoys  with  some  abatement.  It  is  the  work  of  a  con- 
scientious Schiller  enthusiast,  written  with  greath  warmth  of 
feeling  and  great  fulness  of  biographical  detail,  but  not  strong 
on  the  critical  side.  A  twelfth  edition,  somewhat  popular- 
ized by  H.  Fischer,  appeared  in  1886,  a  fifteenth  edition 
in  1900. 

For  some  twenty  years  Palleske  and  Scherr  held  the  field  in 
Germany  without  serious  competition,  and  then  a  new  crop 
of  biographies  began  to  appear.  That  of  H.  Diintzer,  Schillers 
Leben,  mit  46  Illustrationen  und  5  Beilagen,  Leipzig,  1881 
(English  translation  by  Pinkerton,  London,  1883),  retold  the 
familiar  story  in  a  style  less  attractive  than  that  of  Palleske, 
and  without  adding  anything  of  great  importance  in  the  way 
of  critical  appreciation.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  biog- 
raphy by  C.  Hepp,  Leipzig,  1885. 

Of  an  entirely  different  character  are  the  contributions  of 
Weltrich,  Minor,  and  Brahm,  which  are  essentially  works 
of  historico-critical  interpretation.  Unfortunately,  however, 
they  were  begun  on  a  scale  of  such  magnitude,  and  with  such 


A  Survey  of  Schiller  Literature  471 

an  uncompromising  respect  for  the  infinitely  little,  that  there 
is  small  prospect  of  their  completion. 

Of  the  work  of  Weltrich,  Friedrich  Schiller,  Geschichte 
seines  Lebens  und  Charakteristik  seiner  Werke,  unter  kriti- 
schem  Nachweis  der  biographischen  Quellen,  the  first  install- 
ment appeared  in  1885,  the  second  in  189 1,  and  the  third 
(completing  the  first  volume)  in  1899. 

The  work  of  Minor,  Schiller,  sein  Leben  und  seine  Werke, 
of  which  two  volumes  appeared  in  1890,  ends  with  a  discus- 
sion of  *Don  Carlos  '.  More  readable,  but  proportionally  less 
thorough  than  either  of  these,  is  the  work  of  Brahm,  of  which 
the  second  volume,  first  part,  appeared  in  1892,  bringing  the 
story  down  through  Schiller's  Kantian  period. 

The  learnedly  philological  character  of  the  works  just  men- 
tioned, together  with  their  incompleteness,  left  room  enough 
for  further  attempts  at  a  popular  biography  of  Schiller.  This 
demand  has  been  met  in  recent  years  by  Wychgram,  whose 
well-written  and  handsomely  illustrated  Schiller,  Leip^cig, 
1 891,  is  worthy  of  high  commendation;  and  also  by  the 
little  book  of  Harnack,  Berlin,  1898  (one  of  the  *  Geistes- 
helden'  series),  which  is  admirable  within  the  limits  set. 
Of  the  short  biographies  in  English  the  best  are  those  of 
Boyesen,  Goethe  and  Schiller,  New  York,  1882,  and  Sime, 
Schiller,  London,  1882.  That  of  Nevinson,  London,  1889 
(one  of  the  *  Great  Writers '  series),  contains,  along  with 
much  sound  criticism,  a  good  deal  that  is  rather  too  per- 
emptory and  unsympathetic. 

CRITICISM 

The  following  notes  take  no  account  of  criticism  contained 
in  the  general  histories  of  German  literature  and  philosophy, 
nor  of  the  multitudinous  articles,  essays,  reviews,  programs 
and  dissertations  relating  to  particular  works. 

Plays. — The  best  treatise  on  the  plays  as  a  whole  is  that  of 
Bellermann,  Schillers  Dramen,  2nd  edition,  2  vols.,  Berlin,  1898-9. 


472 


Appendix 


Bellermann's  point  of  view  is  that  of  a  learned  dramatic  critic 
and  expounder.  He  writes  as  a  warm  admirer  of  Schiller  and 
is  at  his  best  when  defending  him  against  ill-grounded  censures. 
Occasionally  his  friendly  partisanship  carries  him  a  little  too  far. — 
A  good  discussion  from  the  dramatic  and  histrionic  point  of  view 
is  contained  in  Bulthaupt,  Dramaturgic  des  Schauspiels,  5th  edi- 
tion, Oldenburg,  1891. — The  Studien  zu  Schillers  Dramen,  by 
W.  FieHtz,  Leipzig,  1776,  are  excellent,  but  relate  only  to  '  Wallen- 
stein  ',  ♦  Maria  Stuart '  and  •  The  Maid  of  Orleans '. — Sugges- 
tive and  eminently  readable  is  Werder,  Vorlesungen  iiber  Wal- 
lenstein,  Berlin,  1889. — Rather  more  valuable  for  facts  than  for 
criticism  are  the  Schiller  volumes  of  Diintzers  Erlauterungen  zu 
den  deutschen  Klassikern  (beginning  in  1876). — References  to 
Schiller  are  numerous  in  Freytag,  Die  Technik  des  Dramas  (first 
edition  in  1859),  ^^^  ^^^o  in  the  Shakespeare-Studien  of  Otto 
Ludwig  (edited  by  Heyderich,  1872). — On  the  work  of  Schiller 
as  translator  and  adapter  consult  A.  Koster,  Schiller  als  Drama- 
turg,  Berlin,  1891. — An  up-to-date  French  treatise  on  the  early 
plays  is  that  of  Kontz,  Les  drames  de  la  jeunesse  de  Schiller, 
Paris,  1899. 

Poems. — Viehoff,  Schillers  Gedichte  erlautert,  und  auf  ihre 
Veranlassungen,  Quellen  und  Vorbilder  zuriickgefiihrt,  7th  edi- 
tion, Stuttgart,  1895. — Hauff,  Schillerstudien,  Stuttgart,  1880. — 
Philippi,  Schillers  Lyrische  Gedankendichtung  in  ihrem  ideellen 
Zusammenhange  beleuchtet,  Augsburg,  1888. — Helene  Lange, 
Schillers  Philosophische  Gedichte,  sechs  Vortrage,  Berlin,  1887. 
— Schiller  als  Lyrischer  Dichter  in  Diintzers  Erlauterungen. — 
Considerable  commentary  is  contained  in  The  Poems  and  Ballads 
of  Schiller  translated  by  Sir  Edward  Bulwer  Lytton,  ist  edition, 
London,  1 844. — On  the  Xenia  consult,  in  addition  to  the  edition 
by  Schmidt  and  Suphan,  Boas,  Schiller  und  Goethe  im  Xenien- 
kampf,  Stuttgart,  1851. 

Historical  Writings. — Tomaschek,  Schiller  in  seinem  Verhalt- 
nisse  zur  Wissenschaft ;  von  der  kaiserlichen  Akademie  derWis- 
senschaften  zu  Wien  gekronte  Preisschrift,  Wien,  1862. — Janssen, 
Schiller  als  Historiker,  2nd  edition,  Freiburg,  1879. — Ueberweg, 
Schiller  als  Historiker  und  Philosoph,  Leipzig,  1 884  (written,  how- 


A  Survey  of  Schiller  Literature         473 

ever,  in  1859  in  competition  for  the  prize  of  the  Vienna  Academy, 
which  was  won  by  Tomaschek). 

Philosophical  Writings. — Harnack,  Die  klassische  Aesthetik 
der  Deutschen,  Wiirdigung  der  kunsttheoretischen  Arbeiten 
Schillers,  Goethes  und  ihrer  Freunde,  Leipzig,  1892. — Berger, 
K.  (pseudonym  for  Adolf  Wechssler),  Die  Entwickelung  von 
Schillers  Aesthetik,  Weimar,  1894. — Kiihnemann,  Die  Kanti- 
schen  Studien  Schillers  und  die  Komposition  des  ♦  Wallenstein ', 
Marburg,  1 889. — Gneisse,  Schillers  Lehre  von  der  aesthetischen 
Wahrnehmung,  Berhn,  1893.  Zimmermann,  Schiller  als  Den- 
ker,  1859. — "^^^  works  of  Tomaschek  and  Ueberweg  (see  above 
under  '  Historical  Writings ')  deal  also  with  Schiller  as  a  philo- 
sophic thinker. 

Miscellaneous. — Fischer,  Schiller-Schriften,  Heidelberg,  1891 
(revised  edition  of  earlier  studies  comprising  Schillers  Jugend- 
und  Wanderjahre  in  Selbstbekenntnissen,  Schiller  als  Komiker, 
and  Schiller  als  Philosoph). — Belling,  Die  Metrik  Schillers,  Bres- 
lau,  1883. — Rudolph,  Schiller-Lexikon,  Erlauterndes  Worterbuch 
zu  Schillers  Dichterwerken,  2  vols.,  Berlin,  1890.  —  Rieger, 
Schillers  Verhaltnis  zur  franzosischen  Revolution,  Wien,  1885. 
— Pietsch,  Schiller  als  Kritiker,  Konigsberg,  1898. — Mauerhof, 
Schiller  und  Heinrich  von  Kleist,  Zurich  und  Leipzig  (no  date). 
— EhrHch,  Goethe  und  Schiller,  Berlin,  1897. — Portig,  Schiller  in 
seinem  Verhaltnis  zur  Freundschaft  und  Liebe,  sowie  in  seinem 
inneren  Verhaltnis  zu  Goethe,  Hamburg,  1894  (long-winded  and 
amorphous,  but  useful  in  places). 


GENERAL  INDEX 


A  figure  in  full-faced  type  calls  attention  to  the  passage  in  which  a  subject  is 
most  fully  treated ;  a  figure  with  a  superior  number  to  a  foot-note. 


Abel,  Prof.  J.  F.,  24,  84  1,  168 
Almanac  of  the  Muses,   297,  300, 
301,   305*    318,    320,  327,   328, 

335»  355 

Albrecht,  Sophie,  150,  160 

Amalie,  Dowager  Duchess  of  Wei- 
mar, 201 

Amstein,  Dr.,  77 

Aristotle,  268,  334 

Arnim,  Henriette  von,  174 

Arnold,  Matthew,  60^ 

Auge,  General,  99 

Augustenburg,  Duke  of,  253,  279 

Baggesen,  Jens,  253 
Bauerbach,  78,  loi 
Beck,  Heinrich,  actor,  139 
Beil,  Johann  David,  actor,  139 
Bellermann,  Ludwig,  91,  379 
Beulwitz,    Karoline  von,  see  Wol- 

zogen,  Karoline  von 
Bismarck,  Otto  von,  416 
BjOmson,  BjOrnsterne,  369 
Bottiger,  K.  A.,  376 1,  398 
Bourgeois  tragedy,  113  fF. 
Boxberger,  R.,  376 ^ 
Boyesen,  H.  H.,  89  1 
Brahm,  Otto,  234 1,  464 
Braun,  J.,  146 1,  187  ^ 
Bulthaupt,  H.,  52  ^  60 1,  343 
Bulwer  Lytton,   Sir  Edward,  63  \ 

70  S  71 S   72 1,    152,   311,    312, 


318  S  319 


Burke,  268 

Burger,  G.  A.,  249,  320 

Byron,  Lord,  32,  67 

Carlyle,  T.,  191,  282 

Cervantes,  24,  42,  43 

Conz,  K.  P.,  Ill 

Cotta,  J.  F.,  256,  260,  295,  306,  427 

Cuvier,  G.,  17  ^ 

DacherOden,  Karoline  von,  248 
Dalberg,  Heribertvon,6o,6i,64,76, 
91,  ICO,  106,  no,  138,  148,  153 
Dalberg,  Karl  Theodor  von,  248 
Dannecker,  J.  H.,  17  1,  256,  446 
Diderot,  Denis,  118,  124,  127 

Eckermann,  J.  P.,  32,  264 1,  2642, 

421  S  450,  458 
Euripides,  211,  226,  354,  368 

Fate.idea,  344  ^  391  fif.,  400,  43° 

Fate-tragedies,  404 

Ferguson,  Adam,  265 

Fichte,  J.  G.,  296 

Fielitz,  W.,  344 1,  3592 

Fischer,   Kuno,   30 1,   73  1,   193  ^ , 

197 1,  2551 
Francke,  Kuno,  313 1,  400 
Freiligrath,  F.,  457 
French   Revolution,    23,    38,   147-, 

259  ff. 

Garve,  C.,  265,  296 

Gellert,  C.  F.,  3 

Gemmingen,0,  H.  von,  118, 120, 131 


47: 


476 


General  Index 


Gerstenberg,  H.  W.  von,  23 
Gervinus,  G.  G.,  453.  455»  457 
Goedeke,  K.,  45 

GOschen,  G.  J.,  155,  160,  252,  299 
Goethe,  J.  W.  von,  27,  no,  124, 
153,  201,  202,  206,  209,  224, 
250,  261,  322,  338,  381,  443: 
Ballads,  320  ;  '  Dichtung  und 
Wahrheit',  314;  *  Egmont',  223, 
438  ;  Elegies,  299,  314;  'Epi- 
logue',  447-8;  'Faust',  176,  234, 
264,  310,  35 1 1,  353,  363,  385, 
403  ;  *  G5tz  von  Berlichingen ', 
23,39.40,52,416;  'Iphigenie', 
210,  298,  353;  'Tasso',  155  ; 
'Werther',  66,  118,298;  '  Wil- 
helm  Meister',  297,  306,  353; 
friendship  with  Schiller,  210, 
212,  288  ff.,  331,  424,  ^2T,Horen, 
257,  291,  296  ff. ;  Xenia,  300  ; 
comparison  with  Schiller,  3,  45, 
70,  128,  149,  224,  228,  229,  242, 

294  ff-,  313,  316,  325,  383,  449; 
on  Schiller,  161,  232,  263,  450, 
458;  on  <  Bride  of  Messina ',  389; 
on  'Gods  of  Greece',  216;  on 
'  Naive  and  Sentimental  Poetry ', 
299;  on  'Teir,  414,  421;  on 
'  Wallenstein ',  330,  336,  345 

Gozzi,  Carlo,  387,  442 

Greek  influence,  209,  215,  226, 
331,  364,  387,  388,  435 

Grammont,  J.  F.,  28 

Grillparzer,  Frahz,  404 

Grimm,  Herman,  288,  292,  460 

Grimm,  Jacob,  460 

Haller,  A.  von,  20,  26 
Haug,  J.  C.  F.,  20 
Harnack,  Otto,  322 »,  338,  359 » 
Hauptmann,  Gerhart,  349 
Hegel,  G.  W.  F.,  452 
Heine,  Heinrich,  70,  73,  308,  325, 
404 


Herder,  J.  G.  von,  202,  209,  217, 

238,  242,  296,  299,  304,  320,  389 
Hoffmeister,  Karl,  451 
Hohenheim,  Franziska  von,  12,  13, 

21,  51,  122 
Homer,  209,  312 
Hoven,  Wilhelm  von,  10  2,  19,  25, 

256 
Huber,  L.  F.,  157,  160,  167 
Humboldt,  Wilhelm  von,  248,  257, 

304,  311.  318,  333,  371,  389 

Ibsen,  Henrik,  349 
Iffland,  A.  W.,  iii,  138,  149,  182, 
406,  409,  424,  438 

Jacobi,  F.  H.,  389 
Janssen,  J.,  230* 
Jonas,  F.,  102  * 

Kalb,  Charlotte  von,  150, 153,  160, 
202,  291 

Kant,  Immanuel,  234,  249,  296. 
299;  influence  on  Schiller,  204, 
237,  254,  257,  263,  292,  319; 
Kant's  Esthetics,  269;  diverg- 
ence of  Schiller,  271,  276,  277, 
281,  283 

Kapff,  F.  J.,  56 

Karl  August,  Duke  of  Weimar, 
27,  no,  153,  201,  214,  249,  252, 
355,  424,  427 

Karl  Eugen,  Duke  of  WUrttem- 
berg,  6,  8,  12,  16,  26,  30,  256; 
influence  in  Schiller's  works,  25, 
69,  88,  135;  Schiller's  quarrel 
with,  29,  76,  99,  103,  255 

Karlschule,  13,  14,  19,  256;  Schil- 
ler's criticism  of,  29,  154,  163 

Kempff-,  Karl,  18 

Klein,  Anton  von,  182 

Klinger,  F.  M.,  23,  33,  36,  37, 
46,  52 

Klopstock,  F.  G.,  II,  20,  46, 65, 129 

Kodweis,  G.  F.,  i,  2 


General  Index 


477 


Kodweis,  Dorothea,  see  Schiller, 
Dorothea 

Kttrner,  Gottfried,  152,  155,  156, 
162;  friendship  with  Schiller, 
156,  269,  274,  304,  355,  389  ; 
'  Letters  of  Julius  and  Raphael ', 
171;  aesthetic  correspondence 
with  Schiller,  269,  274;  influence 
on  Posa,  185,  188;  on  'Bride  of 
Messina ',  389 

Koster,  A.,  43 81 

Krake's  '  Life  or  Moor ',  29 

Leibnitz,  G.  W.,  71 

Leisewitz,  J.  A.,  23,  33,  36,  37, 
46,  106,  124,  187 

Lengefeld,  Frau  von,  206 

Lengefeld,  Karoline  von,  see  Wol- 
zogen,  Karoline  von 

Lengefeld,  Lotte  von,  206,  213 

Lenz,  J.  M.  R.,  36 1,  52,  n8 

Lessing,  G.  E.,  10,  36,  45,  83, 
137,  209,  374;  *  Emilia  Galotti  *, 
23,  115,  122,  123;  <Laoko5n', 
284,  298;  '  Miss  Sara  Sampson ', 
115;  'Nathan  the  Wise',  182, 
194,  439;  influence  on  Schiller, 

74,  105,  331 
Lillo,  George,  113 
Litteratur-Zeitung,  205,  226 
Lorch,  4 

Ludwig,  Otto,  453  1 
Ludwigsburg,  7 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  365 1,  374 

Mannheim,  137 

Meier,  99,  100,  139 

Menzel,  Wolfgang,  450 

Mercier,  169,  198 

Merkur,  204,  205;  Schiller's  con- 
tributions, 209,  212,  221,  226, 
227,   236 

Milton,  John,  219 

Minor,  J.,  I7S33S3S,  38S42^ 


Moritz,  K.  P.,  161,  268;  on  'Cabal 

and  Love  *,  146 
Morley,  John,  121,  313,  382  ^ 
Moser,  P.  U.,  4 
Mtillner,  404 

Naturalism,  286,  402 
Nicolai,  F.,  299,  302 
Niebuhr,  B.  G.,  228 

Oemler,  C.  W.,  5  1 
Ossian,  24 

Palleske,  E.,  127,  460 

Petersen,  J.  W.,  10 \  19,  58,  74 

Picard,  L.  B.,  443 

Platen,  Count,  404 

Plato,  71,  312 

Plutarch,  24,  36,  44,  46,  82 

Ranke,  L.  von,  234 

Reinhold,  K.  L.,  204 

Reinwald,  W.  F.  H.,  102,  no 

De  Retz,  Cardinal,  83 

Richardson,  S.,  115 

Richter,  Jean  Paul,  191 

Rieger,  P.  H.,  135,  227 

Robertson,  W.,  83,  105 

Robin  Hood,  42 

Romanticism,  240,  242,  353;  in 
'Mary  Stuart',  363,  370;  in 
'Maid  of  Orleans',  330,  372, 
377,  380,  388 

Romantic   School,  318,  441,  449, 

453 
Rousseau,  24,  38,  68,  183,  217,  239; 
poem  on,  66;  hint  for  'Fiesco', 
82;  '  The  New  Heloise  ',117 

Sallust,  90 

Scharffenstein,  G.  F.,  19,  22 

Scherr,  J.,  460 

Schiller,    Christophine,    sister    of 

the  poet,  4,  5^  9,  57,  loi,  205 
Schiller,   Dorothea,  mother  of  the 

poet,  1,3,  5,  11,57,  loi 


478 


General  Index 


Schiller,  Friedrich,  Life,  see  Table 
of  Contents;  writings,  see  ^.  479 

Schiller,  Johann  Kaspar,  father  of 
the  poet,  I,  2,  10,  14,  55r  57»  142 

Schiller,  Louise,  sister  of  the  poet, 

57 
Schiller,  Nanette,  sister  of  the  poet, 

57 
Schimmelmann,  Count,  253 

Schlegel,  A.  W.,  298,  318,  441,  449 
Schlegel,  F.,  302,  363 
Schleiermacher,     *  Discourses     on 

Religion ',  381 
Schmidt,  Erich,  302  ^ 
Schroder,  Friedrich,  173 
Schubart,  25,  33,  34 
Schwan,   Christian,  60,   loi,   139, 

I45»  159 
Schwan,  Margarete,  139,  150,  159 
Shakspere,  51,  52,  54;   'Hamlet', 
106,  187,  191,  353,  374;   'King 
Lear',  47:  'Macbeth',  333,  343, 
348;  Schiller's  translation,  356, 
441;   'Othello',    199;  'Richard 
the  Third',  47,  342;  'Timon', 
225;    'Two    Gentlemen  of  Ve- 
rona ',  42 ;  influence  on  Schiller, 
24,  53,  94,  96,  105,  184  ;  S.  and 
the  Romantic  School,  449,  453 
Shelley,  309 1,  325 
Solitude,  Castle,  6,  13 
Sophocles,  334,  343;    'King  CEdi- 

pus',  390,  392,  430 
Spinoza,  264 
Stael,  Madame  de,  408;  on  'Mary 

Stuart',  356;  on  Schiller,  447 
Staudlin,  64 
Stein,  Frau  von,  206 
Stock,  Minna,  156,  160 
Stolberg,  Count  Leopold  von,  216, 

299,  302 
Storm  and  Stress,  23 
St.  Real,  Abb6,  105,  177,  198,  199 
Streicher,  Andreas,  78,ic»,  139,145 


Sturz,  H.  P.,  67  ',  82 
Suabian  Magazine,  20,  25 
Suphan,  Bemhard,  302  * 
Swinburne,  A.  C,  365 

Thalia,  153,  155,  159,  161,  168, 
175,  184,  186,  205,  212,  220, 
225,  239,  252,  266,  274,  276 

Timme,  60 

Tomaschek,  K.,  230^ 

Tschudi,  M.,  406,  413,  416,  419 

Vilmar,  453,  45^ 
Vischer,  Frau  Luise,  56,  70 
Voltaire,  374,  443;  poem  on  Joan 
of  Arc,  382 

Wagner,  H.  L.,  52;  'Infanticide', 
118,  121,   123;    'Remorse  after 
the  Deed ',  124 
Walter,  J.  J.,  77 
Watson,  Rev.  Robert,  197,  230 
Weckerlin,  63 
Weimar,  201,  289 
Weltrich,  R.,  10 »,   ii^,   17  \  21  ^ 

22,  26 1,  29 1,  33 1,  56  >,  65^ 
Werner,  Z.,  404 
Wieland,  24,  no,   183,  202,  204, 

216,  221,  304,  441 
Winckelmann,  J.  J.,  209 
Winkelmann,  rival  in  love,  108 
Wirtemberg  Repertory,  74 
Wolf,  F.  A.,  299 
Wolzogen,  Charlotte  von,  104,  107, 

132,  205 
Wolzogen,  Frau  Henriette  von,  78, 

loi,  103,  109,  139,  143,  205 
Wolzogen,  Karoline  von,  5  ^,   10  -, 

206,  213,  256 1,  259,  268 1 
Wolzogen,  Wilhelm  von,  206,  423 

Young  Germany,  452 

Zelter,  K.  F.,  147,  304 
Zumstceg,  17^ 


INDEX  OF  WRITINGS 


PLAYS 
Bride  of  Messina,  328,  330,  387- 

404,  406,  437 
Cabal  and  Love,  2,  13,   107,  112- 

135'  I45»  146,  147.  181 
Don  Carlos,    132,    148,   159,   169, 

I73»    176-200,    204,    330,    350, 

435 
Fiesco,   76,   78,  80-98,   100,   106, 

112,   142,    143,    144,    196,    198, 

429 
Homage  of  the  Arts,  425 
Korner's  Forenoon,  173 
Maid  of  Orleans,  330,  371-386 
Mary  Stuart,   105,  330,   354-370» 

371 
Robbers,  4,  12,  27,  29,  31-54,  58, 

59,  60,  62,  72,   76,  80,  95,  112, 

132,   134,   141,    147,    154,    161, 

183,  282,  344,  405»  457 
Wallenstein,    176,   254,   262,   264, 

305*    307*    330-353»    358,    367* 

385,  428,  441,  453  \  455 
William  Tell,  262,  325,  330,  388, 

405-422,  457 

POEMS 

Anthology  for  1782,  64,  250 
Artists,  212,  217,  266,  310 

Bad  Monarchs,  69 

Battle,  69 

Breadth  and  Depth,  324 


Cassandra,  328 

Celebrated  Wife,  226 

Chariot  of  Venus,  64 

Conqueror,  20 

Count    Eberhard    the    Quarreler, 

69 
Count  of  Hapsburg,  320,  323 
Cranes  of  Ibycus,  320,  322 

Deeds  of  the  Philosopher,  314 
Dignity  of  Women,  304,  317 
Dithyramb,  319 
Diver,  321 

Elegy,  see  The  Walk 

Elegy  on  the   Death  of  Wecker- 

lin,  63 
Eleusinian  Festival,  319 
Elysium,  67 

Errand  at  the  Furnace,  320,   322 
Evening,  20 

Fantasie  to  Laura,  71 
Festival  of  Victory,  328 
Fight  with  the  Dragon,  320,  322 
Friendship,  68 
Funeral  Fantasy,  69 

Glory  of  Creation,  66 

Glove,  321 

God,  66 

Gods  of  Greece,  209,  215,  266 

Group  from  Tartarus,  67 


Hero  and  Leander,  320,  323 


479 


48o 


Index  of  Writings 


Hope,  324 

Hymn  to  the  Sun,  11 

Ideal  and  Life,  310,  311,  315,  456 
Ideals,  316 
Infanticide,  73 

Knight  of  Toggenburg,  320,  322 

Lament  of  Ceres,  319 
Laura-songs,  56,  68-73 
Light  and  Warmth,  324 
Lo"ging>  329 

Maid  of  Orleans,  382 
Maiden  from  Afar,  318,  326 
Maiden's  Lament,  325 
Mountain  Song,  326 
Mystery  of  Reminiscence,  72 

Partition  of  the  Earth,  314 
Pegasus  in  Harness,  316 
Pestilence,  69 
Petition,  166 
Pilgrim,  329 
Pledge,  320,  322 
Power  of  Song,  316 
Prologue  to  Wallenstein,  323 
Punch  Song,  326 

Radicalism  of  Passion,  151,  168 
Realm  of  Shades,  see  Ideal  and 

Life 
Reproach  to  Laura,  71 
Resignation,  151,  168 
Ring  of  Poly  crates,  321 
Rousseau,  66 

Semele,  68 

Song  of  the  Bell,  294,  316,  327 
Song  of  the  Citizen,  319 
Song  to  Joy,  160,  167,  258 
Song  in  Tell,  325 

Veiled  Image  at  Sais,  309 


Walk,  314 

Words  of  Faith,  323,  324 

Words  of  Illusion,  323 

Xenia,  300-303,  318,  337 

Youth  at  the  Brook,  326 

PROSE  WRITINGS 
(a)  Aesthetic  and  Critical 

Artistic  Use  of  the  Vulgar  and 
the  Low,  277 

Connection  between  Man's  Ani- 
mal and  Spiritual  Nature,  the- 
sis, 28 

Dangers  of  ^Esthetic  Culture,  283 

Letters    on    Esthetic    Education, 

280,  296,  456 
Letters  on  Don  Carlos,  177,  221 
Letters    of   Julius   and    Raphael, 

see  Philosophic  Letters 

Moral  Benefit  of  ^Esthetic  Cul- 
ture, 283 

NaYve  and  Sentimental  Poetry, 
24 ',  284,  439 

Necessary  Limits  of  the  Beauti- 
ful, 283 

Philosophic  Letters,  170,  266 
Pathetic,  Essay  on  the,  276 
Philosophy    of     Physiology,     re- 
jected thesis,  26,  67 

Rational    Basis    of    Pleasure    in 

Tragic  Themes,  266 
Review  of  Biirger's  Poems,  249;  of 

Goethe's  Egmont,  211,  223;   of 

Matthison's  Poems,  284;  of  The 

Robbers,  74 


Index  of  Writings 


481 


Scattered   Reflections  on  Various 

iEsthetic  Subjects,  276 
Sublime,  Essay  on  the,  276 

Tragic  Art,  266 

Use  of  the  Chorus  in  Tragedy, 
402 

What  Can  a  Good  Permanent 
Theater  Really  Effect  ?  147 

Winsomeness  and  Dignity,  274, 
290 

(d)  Historical 
Crusades,  Essay  on  the,  241 
Defection  of  the  Netherlands,  204, 

205,  211,  230-236 
First  Human  Society,  239 
Historical  Memoirs,  240 
Study  of  Universal  History,  236 
Thirty  Years'  War,  242-246 

{c)  Fiction 
Criminal  from  Disgrace,  168 
Ghostseer,    124  ^    172,    212,   219, 

266 
Play  of  Fate,  227 

TRANSLATIONS  AND   ADAP- 
TATIONS 
-^neid  249,  251 
Egmont,  438 
Iphigenia  in  Aulis,  226 
Macbeth,  356,  441 
Nathan  the  Wise,  439 
Nephew  as  Uncle,  444 
Parasite,  444 
Phedra,  426,  444 
Phoenician  Women,  226 
Precis  Historique,  169 
Turandot,  387,  442 


UNFINISHED   AND   PRO- 
JECTED  WORKS 

Agrippina,  437 

Analytic  of  the  Beautiful,  276 

Children  of  the  House,  437 
Christians,  12 

Concerning  Beauty,  see  Kallias 
Cosmo  dei  Medici,  25 
Count  KOnigsmark,  434 
Countess  of  Flanders,  437 

Death  of  Themistocles,  437 
Defense  of  Louis  XVI.,  258 
Demetrius,  423,  425,  428 

Elfride,  437 

Filibuster,  437 
Fredericiad,  250,  252  \ 
Friedrich  Imhof,  105 

Kallias,    or    Concerning    Beauty, 

269,  274,  279,  284 
Knights  of  Malta,  332,  388,  435 

Misanthrope  Reconciled,  175,  225 
Moses,  12 

Phoenician  Women,  226 
Police,  437 

Princess      of    Celle,    see     Coimt 
KOnigsmark 

Ship,  437 

Student  of  Nassau,  25 

Warbeck,  388,  423,  43a 


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